Wacky Wednesday: Wills That Make You Go “Hmmm…” – Gene Roddenberry

NB: This post is part of a series highlighting wills that contain some interesting, and sometimes bizarre, bequests and stipulations. You can see all these posts here.

If you are a Star Trek fan like me, you’ve heard of Gene Roddenberry.

He is the man who created and produced the original Star Trek series and inspired the production of related shows including The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise.

Gene Roddenberry loved space. So much so, that he wanted to spend eternity in it.

After his death in 1991, his body was cremated. On April 21, 1997, a capsule carrying a portion of his ashes were launched into orbit aboard a rocket from near the Canary Islands. The capsule disintegrated in the atmosphere in 2004.

Last year, a company called Celestis, Inc, which specializes in “memorial spaceflights” announced that it will ship the rest of Gene Roddenberry’s cremated remains, along with those of his wife, Majel Barrett, into space in 2012. The remains will be transported deeper into space and will not return to earth.