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Blast me up Scotty! Star Trek actor's ashes ready for launch
Blast me up Scotty! Star Trek actor's ashes ready for launch
Friday April 27, 2007
The ashes of "Star Trek" star James Doohan will be blasted into space on Saturday when a rocket carrying a symbolic portion of the late actor's cremated remains is launched in New Mexico.
Doohan, beloved for his role as the USS Enterprise's chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, died aged 85 in 2005, but plans for his posthumous rendezvous with the stars have been repeatedly delayed.
However, launch organizers Space Services Inc. are confident that Doohan's wishes will finally be granted when their SpaceLoft XL rocket blasts off from the Spaceport America private launchpad near Las Cruces, in New Mexico.
"While 'Scotty' lived this, Jimmy lived for this," Doohan's widow Wende said in a press release. "I will be there to see the launch, knowing that Jimmy is participating in an industry which he loved so very much."
A public memorial service will take place at the New Mexico Museum of Space History on Friday.
Ashes belonging to 201 other people will also be catapulted into the heavens along with Doohan, including those of Gordon Cooper, a US astronaut who was part of the Mercury manned spaceflight program in the early 1960s.
Doohan's posthumous spaceflight will see him follow in the footsteps of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, whose remains were fired into space by SSI in 1997, six years after his death.
SSI offers a variety of services for families wishing to shoot the remains of loved ones into space.
Launching a single gram of ashes comes with a 495-dollar price tag, while sending remains into deep space, a service which comes into effect from 2009 will cost up to 12,500 dollars.
AFP
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