If you are a Star Trek fan like me, you’re familiar with James Doohan. He was the actor who played Montgomery Scott, the chief engineer of the original Star Trek series who is associated with the catchphrase “Beam me up, Scotty.”
Like Gene Roddenberry, who created the original Star Trek series, James Doohan loved space. Doohan had told his wife that he wanted his ashes flown in space. So after he died on July 20, 2005, she had him cremated and contracted with a company called Celestis, Inc, which specializes in “memorial spaceflights” to fulfill his request. Celestis is the same company that transported Gene Roddenberry’s cremated remains into space.
Just last week, on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, a capsule carrying a portion of his ashes were launched into orbit aboard a rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket is scheduled to deliver supplies to the International Space Station, and then orbit the earth for several months before disintegrating in the earth’s atmosphere.
“He would rather have flown when he was alive, of course,” Doohan’s widow, Wende is reported to have said. Since that wasn’t possible, this is the next best alternative!
