Scotty To Be 'Beamed Up'

joel_archer writes "James 'Scotty' Doohan's remains will be launched into space in accord with his last wishes. Commercial space flight operator Space Services Inc. will launch the late actor's remains into space aboard its Explorers Flight on December 6. Along for the ride will be 120 others including an unidentified astronaut and Mareta West, the astrogeologist who determined the site for the first spacecraft landing on the moon. Fans can post tributes to Doohan at the Space Services Web site. Those messages will be digitized, packed with 'Scotty' and blasted into space."

Comments

Its in a large part just publicity

[TheEqualizer]

Those ashes aren't really going into space, just low-earth orbit, and their orbit will decay in a decade or so.

Re:Its in a large part just publicity

[QuantumG]

Wrong. They're boosted into a "perminate" parking orbit. These guys do good work and they're one of the few companies making a shot at space services and actually making any money. All spacecraft need balast, it might as well be something people are willing to pay to send up.

Re:Its in a large part just publicity

[TheEqualizer]

Well, no orbit is permanent, all orbits eventualy decay. Here's what thair web site says... http://www.memorialspaceflights.com/faq.asp How long will the cremated remains stay in Earth orbit? The length of orbital stay depends on the final altitude of the primary satellite launched on the mission (a memorial spacecrafts is a "secondary payload" aboard each mission). For example, the orbital life span for our Celestis satellites ranged from two years to several hundred years. The anticipated orbital lifetime for each mission is posted on the dedicated flight web page, after its launch.

Re:Its in a large part just publicity

[ArsenneLupin]

Those ashes aren't really going into space, just low-earth orbit. . .

i.e., space.

Actually, most of the ashes aren't even going to LEO. Most will be scattered at sea. What goes into space is only a symbolic 1 or 7 gram sample (sample size dependant on service you select).

Re:Godsend Jimmy

[TheEqualizer]

Doohan was also a WW2 vet who took part in the Normandy landings, losing a part of his hand due to enemy fire.

Why on Earth do you get Space news from CNN?

[TheStonepedo]

BBC ran this article months ago:
Scotty's ashes to hit outer space

Re:As if there was not enough crap in space

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, come on. It's nowhere near the orbit of satellites. It's like putting a tombstone in a field next to a seldom traveled road. Oh wait, that's kind of like what they do here on the ground. Some people simply have no concept of scale and 3 dimensional space.....

Re:From the CNN article....

[Vellmont]

Bummer... why couldn't they just fire it off to some random star or something? Like say, the second star on the right?

Money. It's expensive to escape the earths gravitational pull. It's even more expensive to escape the suns gravitational pull. The escape velocity of the earth is 11.2 km/sec at the surface. The escape velocity of the sun on the earths surface is 42.1 km/sec, which is about 95,000 miles an hour. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think the voyager and pioneer probes only managed to escape the suns gravity though planetary gravitational assists.