Slashdot Mirror
Scotty's Final Mission
Jane Q. Public writes "According to Ars Technica, the ashes of James Doohan, who played "Scotty" in the original 'Star Trek' series and several movies, were aboard the SpaceX III launch and were lost when the launch vehicle failed." Which totally wouldn't have happened if Scotty was the engineer.
Update: 08/05 00:09 GMT by KD : BoingBoing has a tribute to Doohan from his son.
Update: 08/05 00:09 GMT by KD : BoingBoing has a tribute to Doohan from his son.
He really couldn't bend the laws of physics after all =\
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Do they get a refund?
That was my first thought when I heard about the ashes.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Poor Scotty :(
"She canna take much more 'o this - she'll blow!"
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Not only was he incinerated, but then they blew up the ashes.
Who was the captain aboard this vessel? I bet it was not James T Kirk, he'd have limited the damage while Scotty was working at the problem...
She kinna' doo it cap'n - it dinna' ha' the powah! At least now Scotty will be with us everywhere, up there, in the atmosphere.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
If I well remember, this is the second try to send Scotty's ashes out of the Earth. First time also failed but the ashed were no lost.
I can just imagine that the soul of Scotty, at the end, doesn't like to be in that cold space.
Recave
Guess Scotty (and his pals) really went out with a BANG! :-)
Scotty rigged the transporter to keep him suspended until rescue.
"Scotty! Do! something! Now!"
"He can't."
"Why? Can't? He?"
"He's dead, Jim."
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Hmmmmm. I thought Scotty's ashes had been lost before:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/10/2249214
Always multiply your estimates by a factor of 4. Seriously, the advice has done me wonders. People really do think that you're a miracle worker.
we just forgot to write down the destination coordinate
fvck b3ta!
You can't argue that he was a part of helping humans reach into space, whether through inspiration or tagging along posthumously
Check out my sysadmin blog!
While this may be the geek in me, I would be honored if my ashes were sent up. Even if the vessel carrying them did not make it all the way up. Least this way my ashes are scattered in the most efficient way possible if/when the rocket goes Kaboom.
...
Sides with any luck some of my ashes will have drifted down and ended up in someone's soup. Eat me!
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Of course the rocket builders will now have to ask themselves how it managed to get to warp factor 9.9 in the first place.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (not that anyone on /. needs permission for that...), but isn't this old news? Even old news by Slashdot standards?
Either someone made another metric/english conversion error, or someone got into the Romulan Ale again...
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
I suspect foul play...
I'm a engineer, Jim, not a fertilizer!
Scotty won't be up there to beam them up now will he?
He's dead Jim, dead Jim, dead jim
There's never any point in being second best (or worst).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Lost in Space to his IMDB profile.
In a strange way, I see it as a fitting end to Mr. Doohan's physical form. He inspired countless young people to pursue careers in the sciences, and then, even after leaving this world, continues to inspire.
I know that the body is not the person, and I would like to think that his spirit lives on. At least in this way he can be thought of as being everywhere. Scotty was a fictional character, but through that character James Doohan inspired so many people to believe in themselves.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Doohan. You will be missed, but never forgotten.
We should have listened to him when he explained that if the captain pushed the engines too hard they'll blow apart.
Maybe some tribbles got into the system.
America, Home of the Brave.
Also among the ashes being carried were those of one of the original 7 Project Mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper.
But who gets mentioned? A guy who PLAYED an engineer on a TV show....
Hey today's space companies, NASA called from 1969 and said you suck!
stuff |
It is absolutely depressing to me that everyone shows some concern over the ashes of an ACTOR, but ignores the fact that a TRUE SPACE HERO (Gordo Cooper), one of the Mercury 7, was onboard. .... yikes.
Suspended Animation offers better recovery possibilities, especially now the latest suspend-to-disk has got into the kernel.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, I hope he's have a final mission anyways. The current enginner may be afraid on giving excuses to Scotty personaly. Gordon Cooper, astronaut from the original Mercury 7 was there too. Now, they are anywhere, "lost in space" Will... (sorry bad english).
Information technology means all information.
I don't really mean to feed the troll, I'm genuinely curious as to the reasons and mentality behind posting such random rubbish.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
I do not have confidence in Space-X, and not just because they are 0-3. Munsk gave a speech shortly after the blowup, and stressed that he would "not skip a beat in execution".
To me, his statement says that schedule is more important than safety. That the next flights will NOT be delayed to double-and-triple check everything, that there will NOT be additional company-wide training in safety, care, and making sure every little thing goes correct.
How many blowups before we are allowed to say that his stated goal of ten-times the existing reliability has failed?
That's odd. I read that exact same story the last time Scotty's ashes were onboard (about a year or so ago). I remember, because one of my emails were aboard, aswell. Did they only use parts of his remains the first time and now lost another part..? I don't have time to research this right now, but I bet someone here does ("hinthint"). I just had a deja vu reading this... odd. And I just talked to my father about this, all he said was: "It happened because Scotty was not the engineer"...
cat
perhaps one should read the article before accusing others of being hypocrites. The shuttle was being used to launch 3 satellites for various agencies. As a side note, they added that over 200 people's ashes were also on board, including Scotty. Just because people care more about the ashes being lost doesn't mean that the rocket didn't actually have a practical purpose.
"Whelchy!!!!"
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
What is an anti-rocketry, SUV-driving NASCAR redneck doing here? Oh trolling, never mind.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Sorry to reply to myself... a quick google query and I found this: CosmicLog So they found the ashes after the first crash....
cat
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/05/18/196359.aspx .. hmm I used a href first time sorry
cat
There are six billion people on this planet, and more than a few of them are batshit crazy.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Or maybe refried beans
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
Someone set the damn thing for Max Dispersal!!!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
What a send-off!
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Let's not get carried away here. A very small vial of his ashes was sent upward. A token amount. There's plenty left over to try again dozens of times.
This is just so terribly, terribly funny... I mean tragic. No, it's funny.
This is the second time James Doohan's ashes have been lost by a spacecraft. The first was mentioned on Slashdot http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/10/2249214 about a year go. His remains were lost after a sub-orbital craft landed in an inaccessible area in New Mexico. Last time his remains were eventually retrieved. Third times a charm?
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
I, for one, welcome our NECROTIC----NO! must resist meme...
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
Message received and understood, Professor.
We (all of us) will be in(?n?)itiating plansector eight(8) at the afore-mentioned time.
~%%%%%
It's raining men...
They did get into space, just not into orbit.
Scotty was almost always saved people from transporter failures... with a few exceptions... icky messes... best not to think about it when using a transporter... anyway... Scotty finally met his final end in a wee bit of an icky mess himself with the second attempt to get to orbit... transporter failure gets scotty!
"NO! You'll flood the whole compartment!"
"He'll die in there!"
"Elon! He's dead already.."
James Doohan - RIP
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
The average weight of cremated remains for an adult male is six pounds according to Wikipedia, but weight is so limited in these rocket launches that they're only sending an ounce or two of the remains each time.
So there's plenty more Scotty to go around.
G.
Launch 1: Failure Launch 2: Failure At this point, who the hell decided that "third time's the charm" and it would be a good idea to load it up with pricey satellites and irreplaceable human relics? Lunch 3: Spectacular Failure Here's an idea: how about we let Space X get at least ONE successful test launch under their belt before we start entrusting them with our payload?
they should have shot him out a torpedo tube. They did that to Spock when he died and he was back in time for the next movie.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
I'd heard he was in the D-Day landings, but he's not listed in the credits of The Longest Day. Mind you neither is Jack Hedley, and he was playing the guy demonstrating the dummy parachutist.
NASA called from 1969 and said that NASA sucks!
I doubt they would recognize it by what it has become: slow, stodgy, bureaucratic.
twice-baked Haggis.
That was my thought as well.
Wow, way to twitter yourself :P
There's a huge misconception most people seem to have about this story, so I figured I'd repost my comment from the previous SpaceX story:
It's worth noting though that Celestis, the company which offers the service for placing a person's cremated remains on a space launch, only uses a tiny portion of the ashes on a particular launch. From their FAQ:
http://www.memorialspaceflights.com/faq.asp
Why launch only a symbolic portion?
We offer the launch of a symbolic portion of the cremated remains as a memorial service, not final disposition of all the remains, because although dramatic progress is being made by entrepreneurs in reducing launch costs, spaceflight is still quite expensive. By launching a portion we can offer an affordable service, and also can provide performance assurance.
We will arrange for final disposition of the balance of the cremated remains through a sea scattering service, should you so desire.
Space launches are challenging. What if the orbit is not achieved?
In the event that the Celestis Earth Orbit Service spacecraft does not achieve orbit, we will -- at no additional cost -- place a second sample of the cremated remains aboard our next scheduled mission.
They charge @$2000 a gram. (Close to a million dollars a pound.) People just do a gram or so.
"Murphy said she had no details on the fate of the rocket after the anomaly" from
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon/003/
all they know is about 5 mins into the flight, they lost the feed. They don't know if it blew up. They don't say they activated self destruct. They don't say "watch out for falling bits of Scotty falling from the sky".
If it didn't make orbit, then it's going to come down. no?
http://xkcd.com/435/
Which totally wouldn't have happened if Scotty was the engineer
Should that be "if Scotty had been..."?
human bodies are biofuel, burning one up and spreading the ashes about is carbon neutral.
Anyone seen Scotty?
History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes quite often. -- Mark Twain
None of the reports I have read have stated that the rocket blew up or that the rocket/payload is "lost". Parts of the Falcon 1 are meant to be reused. It seems at this time there is the possibility of retrieving the ashes.
... this comment on the OP was inappropriate?
"""
Which totally wouldn't have happened if Scotty was the engineer.
"""
With all due credit to XKCD (which I've never heard of), that line of "reasoning" is a common science/math joke which has been around a long, long time.
Seriously, they have had what? 3 out of 3 failures? LOL. Good jorb guys!!11!one1!
Scaled Composites has kicked everyone's asses from the beginning.
Now we can all say "Breathe me up Scotty!"
-AmbientMic
I'll bite.
It's an exercise in the tolerance equations of free speech. All communication outlets appear somewhere on the moderation spectrum. Tightly moderated content shows no visible trolls for very long, but risks losing edge content due to moderator predjudice. Unmoderated content allows anything, but risks being overrun in a kind of Tragedy of Commons class of fallacy.
Now that you know, "life just goes on". Trolls post, get downmodded as expected, and nothing really momentous has occurred. However, your sig is clearly trolling, which you know, and I don't yet know of a way to excise troll sigs.
(I'm risking a -1 Whoosh mod. So be it. I prefer to answer almost-genuine questions.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The Romurans are behind this.
Where is a General Products hull when you need one.
We all knew that red shirt was going to get him eventually.
Thank you for your genuine response, it does actually make a lot of sense, society always seems to find a way to test it's boundaries and this is just another way of doing it.
My question was genuine, though, for some reason things like this interest me. In a previous life, I was probably a psychiatrist or something.
Since we're all already getting modded off-topic anyway, allow me to explain my sig. Previously, it used to just say "If you're reading this, I'm bored at work. Then again, so are you.", then one day a fellow /.er posted this comment and I decided to change it because it was funny. It was in no way meant to troll, however I can now see how it might be interpreted that way. I'll probably change it when I find something better.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
I guess wearing the redshirt finally caught up with Scotty.
Um, they were going there anyways.
These events aren't for the dead..mostly ebcasue they are dead.
It's about the people still here.
Just like any funeral.
Space exploration and use is our number 1 way to get through the current situation, SUVs are not.
For the record, I(and most people) don't consider an SUV in and of itself isn't a problem. They way there are used can be.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
TODAY's NASA sucks. Compared to 1969, anyway.
STFU, noob. srsly.
Third launch attempt, third failure... why is it that DoD and NASA and Scotty's family all trusted these guys to get anything into space?