Jeff Bezos invited Tom Hanks to space before William Shatner but he said no

William Shatner may have been ready to boldly go where no celebrity has gone before when he accepted Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ invitation to space, but everyone’s dad, Tom Hanks, had a slightly different reaction when he was invited on the trek.

Hanks stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live this week to promote his new Apple+ film, Finch. There, Kimmel asked him whether it was true Bezos asked him to join that infamous, minutes-long space flight before he invited Star Trek hero William Shatner aboard.

“Well, yeah, provided I pay,” Hanks responded. “You know, it costs like 28 million bucks or something like that. I’m doing good, Jimmy, I’m doing good. But I ain’t paying 28 [million] bucks.”

Now, if the flight were free, Hanks admitted he would reconsider the offer. “[Maybe then I’d do it] on occasion, just in order to experience the joy of pretending I’m a billionaire,” he added. For now, Hanks seems content to just pretend to have the experience—he even “simulated” a space ride on Jimmy’s guest chair.

“It’s about a 12-minute flight? Is that it? Okay, we could all do it in our seats here,” he said, bouncing around. Maybe that’s how he and the crew did it in Apollo 13, Hanks’ 1995 flick in which he played real-life astronaut Jim Lovell. See? He's already been to space! 

Okay, not technically, but for now, it seems like Hanks might have made the right decision for his fanbase and wallet alike. Sure, 90-year-old Shatner became the oldest person to ever travel to space when he boarded the New Shepard rocket for the NS-18 mission in October, but Bezos and his vanity flight have faced some major criticism. To many, the trip just looks like a giant waste of money. Money that could have been used to... help solve world hunger or the climate crisis, maybe? 

Others have pointed out that it’s Shatner’s money and he should be able to do what he wants with it. 

Some other celebrities have also chimed in on the debate. Dynasty star Joan Collins, who once guest-starred on Star Trek, spoke out against it during a conversation on ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it’? What a fool. Who wants to do that? No, absolutely not,” she said. “Did you see Bill Shatner? He was in the air and they were turning him upside down. Let’s take care of this planet first before we start going off.”

Succession star Brian Cox also said he wouldn’t personally go up there. “I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. “I remember watching [Sir Richard] Branson and Bezos going up for their 11 minutes or whatever. No, we do not need more spaceships. We’ve got enough crap flying around up there. We do not need any more.”

Prince William also spoke out against the trip. “We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live,” he said in October.

Shatner responded shortly after, saying that Prince William had the wrong idea. “This is a baby step into the idea of getting industry up there, so that all those polluting industries, especially, for example, the industries that make electricity... off of Earth,” he said.

“[We could] build a base 250, 280 miles above the Earth and send that power down here, and they catch it, and they then use it, and it's there,” he continued. “All it needs is... somebody as rich as Jeff Bezos [to say], 'Let's go up there.’”

Blue Origin, the company behind New Shepard, explains on its website that the reusable six-person spacecraft is “designed to take astronauts and research payloads past the Kármán line—the internationally recognized boundary of space.”

No word on which celeb might head into space next (maybe Tom Cruise?), but odds are the internet is going to have some thoughts either way.

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