Ashes of Doohan Sent Into Space

Stephen Samuel writes "The CBC is reporting that Star Trek actor James Doohan ("Scotty") achieved his hopes of having his ashes launched into space when a package containing some of his ashes, ashes of Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and about 200 other people were carried into sub-orbital space by a 6 meter (20') rocket. The rocket was launched by UP Aerospace from "Spaceport America", a commercial spaceport being developed in the southern New Mexico desert."

Comments

Congrats, Scotty!

[Anonymous Coward]

You made it into space. If only briefly.

>>the rocket soon parachuted back to Earth

"Aye, Cap'n, I cannough change the lews of physics"

Interestingly, Mr. Doohan was a huge fan of steam locomotives, far away from the high tech of Star Trek, donating his time to a museum, and acting as a locomotive engineer (ok, "driver" to some of you).

tph

Re:First Spock now Scotty

[Anonymous Coward]

It is sort of disappointing. Only one ounce of the actor's ashes were aboard the rocket and the rocket only reached sub-orbital space (good for a rocket but not so cool for an individual's ashes being flown into space). Worse, it seems that everything came back with the rocket. So, really, what happened is one ounce of Doohan's ashes made a round-trip jaunt to sub-orbital space. They spent maybe a couple minutes there and now all of his ashes are back on Earth.

There is no chance for a Spock/Genesis story with this one.

Re:Great

[a_nonamiss]

Had you read the article, you'd know this was a sub-orbital flight. Nothing left in space.

From TFA:

Since it was a suborbital flight, the rocket soon parachuted back to Earth, coming down at the White Sands Missile Range. While technically a spaceflight, it was more or less a really high-altitude rocket.

Re:NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

would/could of -> would/could 've. It may sound the same, but trust me, there's a difference...

Re:James Doohan WW2 Vet

[Anonymous Coward]

He also lost a finger storming the beach on D-Day with the Canadian Engineers. You can only see it in one episode of TOS, as he hid his 4-fingered hand very well.

Re:James Doohan WW2 Vet

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Which cost him one of his fingers (and thankfully that's all). He tried to hide it as often as he could, but there are a few episodes of Star Trek where you can see his missing index finger in a shot or two. Also, unknown to most people, he provided the voices of a lot of the supporting and incidental characters in the animated Star Trek show. He always had a talent for voices.

suborbital

[PineGreen]

It is suborbital, so the ashes will, eventually, fall back to earth. Their net energy is still negative.

Re:Obligatory Scotty Quote

[ptbarnett]

Relics, TNG episode 130.

As noted in this episode description, "It is green" was a reference to nearly the same line spoken by Scotty in By Any Other Name, TOS, episode 51.

Re:Obligatory Scotty Quote

[mmdog]

Scotty used the "It's green" line in TOS episode 51: By Any Other Name. He was trying to bring out the 'humanity' in the aliens who had hijacked the enterprise by getting the guy loaded.