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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."
Not that I have anything against Mr Doohan personally, but this strikes me as an incredibly stupid idea.
Why waste all that money, time and effort putting *dead people* into orbit so they can float around for a while being a space junk hazard?
As Mr Spock would say...
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
. . .just publicity
.
.their orbit will decay in a decade or so.
Ya mean like a tombstone? It's a memorial. Publicity is inherent in their nature.
Those ashes aren't really going into space, just low-earth orbit. .
i.e., space.
. .
I canna change the laws of physics, Cap'n, but what better way to scatter a gram or seven of Jimmy's ashes upon the face of the earth Earth? That's one shooting movie star I'd like to see with my own eyes.
So long Jimmy, and thanks for all the Trek.
KFG
Knowing the damage one of those capsule would cause to a satellite, it's like allowing people to put their tombstones on the highway ...
http://www.transparency.org
Two issues:
First, this story is a followup. If you bothered to read the story you posted, you'd see it was mentioned that the launch was scheduled for September originally. The "news" part of this news is that the company spokesperson announced this on Friday, October 14.
Second, this isn't a CNN story - it's a Reuters wire story. CNN is just carrying it.
Sometimes news gets new again...just because something is mentioned once doesn't mean new things don't happen.
If it weren't for his disease (and later, death) I imagine he would have been right there beside Walter Koenig in a fan-produced episode.
;)), for me there's something really special about them willing to go that extra mile for their fans (and enjoying it as well) that puts them above others, such as the actor who played Kirk.
While actors like the one that played Spock are much more famous then "the little guys" like Doohan and Koenig (not that they're very little
I'll answer my own question. I'm 42 years old, and with that age (including a family with two amazing daughters that I scarecly deserve) comes a belief that there's something bigger than my not-so-amazing life... that the two children I fathered (and especially the wife who bore them) are somehow more wonderful than me, or anything I could imagine. A surprising consideration from someone who has developed a sense of wonder but who doesn't have a belief in the supernatural. I'm in awe of my progeny and the woman who agreed to share her life with me...
Why is it that the news of James' passing makes me think of this, here in the wee hours of the morning? I guess it's not hard to deconstruct... I think we'd all like to be the one who worked behind the scenes, the one who made things possible but never got the credit for it. It's a romantic thought that is powerful in me...
With the most reverent "I'm givin' 'er all she's got, Captain!",
- Leo
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
Yeah. Just replace "Scotty" with "Pile of ashes". and "Beamed up" with "rocket launched" and we'll have an title that reflects reality.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Why do we do anything with dead people other than run them through meat grinders and then drop the result in a compost heap? Obviously, whether with or without religious convictions, most of us want to show respect to the dead and the people they have left behind. This is far more important to most people than the value of a few pounds of solid matter that make up a typical human body. When you think logically, even the practice of encasing each dead person in a wood or steel box, and then dropping said box in a plot of land, leaving that land unusable for any other purpose forever is unsustainable. If human custom remains this way long enough, the entire Earth would be one giant cemetery with billions of steel boxes wasting incredible resources. I suspect our customs will change long before this becomes an issue. On the other hand, perhaps it is hubris to assume that humanity will survive long enough for this to become a problem.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Let's review the past few years. Space shuttle launches, gets damaged by debris on lift off. Of course, it wasn't proven, just highly speculated that the debris came from some foam that fell off during launch. Several people burned alive upon reentry because of the damage.
Most recent shuttle launch, part of the voyage's purpose is diverted to make a repair, presumably because of more debris damage.
Most recently, a private firm is allowed to launch a bunch of shit into orbit to make more debris danger and to commemorate a few people with enough money to waste on this kind of stuff, rather than give the wealth away to charitable organizations who are fighting disease or trying to make the world a better place. Great idea.
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
and if that meant not spending so much time signing souvenirs for fanboys to sell on eBay, you shouldn't hold it against him.
I don't hold him making money against him (although he IS a controversial figure when it comes to the Trek fandom, as well as an actor with what some of his co-workers have had to say in the past), I just think that those who ARE willing to put the extra effort in (regardless of the reasons) are placed a little higher in my heart.
I do find it amusing that one of the worse actors from Star Trek (in my opinion) is one of the most successful ones post Star Trek.
Is anyone willing to question why playing a fictional hero seems to inspire more interest than helping to free Europe?
My guess is that (at least in the US) WWII is a distant historical event, whereas anyone with a TV can see him playing Scotty at least once a week.
I'm 27. Neither of my parents were born when WWII ended. When I was in high school, WWII was taught in the same way as things that really are ancient history. There was no sense of connection to it on a personal level. Maybe if I had grown up in part of the world where it was actually fought and our class could have seen and touched artifacts of it it would have been more real.
I didn't get a sense of connection to it until 3 or 4 years ago when I watched the old World at War documentary series on DVD, and inherited a naval AA gunsight and barrel of that era from my granddad.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman