William Shatner says Prince William has 'wrong idea on space travel but backs ...

New astronaut William Shatner has fired back at Prince William's criticism of the billionaire space race, after the royal said the wealthy should be 'trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.'  

In an interview today with Entertainment Tonight, one day after he traveled to space, 90-year-old Shatner said William had misunderstood the point of his trip.

'He's a lovely Englishman. He's going to be king of England one day,' Shatner told of the Duke of Cambridge. 'He's a lovely, gentle, educated man, but he's got the wrong idea.'

Shatner, famous for playing Captain Kirk on Star Trek, traveled to space on an 11-minute flight with Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos. 

Without specifically mentioning Bezos by name, the duke told the BBC, '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.' 

'It really is quite crucial to be focusing on this [planet] rather than giving up and heading out into space to try and think of solutions for the future,' the royal said, adding that he has 'absolutely no interest' in going to space, and questioning the carbon cost of space flights.

Shatner, though, saw a different meaning to his journey to space: protecting the Earth, not finding an alternate planet to live on.

'The idea here is not to go, 'Yeah, look at me. I'm in space.' The landing that consumed all that... energy and people to take a look and go, 'Oh, look at that.' No,' Shatner said.

'I would tell the prince, and I hope the prince gets the message, 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.'

Instead, Shatner wants to see more companies in energy resourcing build bases above the Earth, so that it doesn't impact the planet's ecosystem.

'We've got all the technology, the rockets, to send the things up there... You can build a base 250 or 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.'''

Ultimately, Shatner said: 'The prince is missing the point. The point is these are the baby steps to show people [that] it's very practical. You can send somebody like me up into space.'

As for the Prince William's argument to first focus on the problems on Earth rather than to travel to space, Shatner said he 'of course' agrees.

'So fix some of the stuff down here,' Shatner said. '... But we can curl your hair and put lotion on your face at the same time.'   

In a later interview on CNN's Cuomo Prime Time, Shatner said it would be 'tragic if your children, especially our children's children, don't have a chance to be part of this beautiful thing we call Earth.'

He added that 'we have to do something about global warming now, before we all are affected by it.'

The journey to space is one Shatner is glad to have been a part of, calling the experience 'indescribable,' and noting that there are simply 'no words in the English language to relate.'

'You hear people say religious experience, I don't

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