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Scotty's Ashes Rocket Up, Crash Down

by Tim Stevens on May 21, 2007 at 11:07 AM

Scotty's Ashes Rocket Up, Crash Down
James Doohan, the actor best-known for playing the role of Scotty on the original 'Star Trek' series, may have died in 2005, but his space exploits continue.

In his will, Doohan requested that his ashes be blasted into space, and on April 28 he got his wish. Some of the actor's remains were loaded, along with the ashes of about 200 other people, onto the first rocket to be successfully launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Spaceport America -- essentially an airport for commercial spacecraft due to be finished in 2010 -- is establishing itself to be at the forefront of the fledgling non-NASA-funded space race (it's the same place where Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic plans to launch private space flights for the low-low price of $200,000).

The rocket flight launch and sub-orbital flight were successful and lasted a total of about 20 minutes, but it wasn't until this past weekend that the payload was finally found in a rocky spot within the White Sands Missile Range.

Thankfully, Scotty's remains and those of the others (which included astronaut Gordon Cooper and 'Star Trek' writer John Meredith Lucas), were intact. It must have been a rough landing, but Scotty's last flight was certainly an important one in the development of commercial space travel, which is edging closer and closer to reality.

From 'USA Today'

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Tags: breaking+news, James Doohan, JamesDoohan, Scotty, top

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