October 17, 2005
Doohan Beams Up For Last Time
Star Trek star James Doohan's cremated remains will be launched into space in accord with his last wishes, the Reuters news service reported.
Commercial space flight operator Space Services Inc. will launch the late actor's remains into space aboard its Explorers Flight on Dec. 6, a company spokeswoman told the news service.
Doohan, who played the U.S.S. Enterprise's chief engineer Montgomery Scott on the original Trek series and subsequent films, will be among more than 120 others whose remains will be aboard the flight, including those of an unidentified astronaut and Mareta West, the astrogeologist who determined the site for the first spacecraft landing on the moon.
Doohan died in July at age 85. To mark the flight, Doohan's family will hold a service for fans on a 60-acre site near Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Los Angeles the day of the launch to pay tribute to him.
Doohan's cremated remains will be packed into a special tube that is ejected from the rocket and expected to orbit Earth for about 50 to 200 years before plunging into the planet's atmosphere and burning up.
Fans can post tributes to Doohan at the Space Services Web site www.spaceservicesinc.com. Those messages will be digitized, packed with Doohan and blasted into space.
Posted by MK Magazine at October 17, 2005 06:31 AM