Steve Shoup, Reuters
2007 04 28
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. — Actor James Doohan, who played the starship Enterprise’s chief engineer Scotty on Star Trek, finally made it to space today as a rocket with some of his ashes was launched in New Mexico.
Remains of the Canadian-born actor, who died two years ago at the age of 85, hurtled to the edge of space aboard a telephone pole-size rocket that blasted off from a desert launching grounds near Truth or Consequences.
Doohan inspired the legendary catch phrase “Beam me up, Scotty” — even though it was never actually uttered on the popular television show.
Hundreds of spectators clapped, cheered and cried as his ashes roared aloft along with the remains of some 200 other people.
“It was great, it was fun and we want to go again,” said Doohan’s widow, Wende Doohan, who pressed the launch button with Cooper’s widow, Susan Cooper.
The flight was arranged by Houston-based company Space Services Inc. The company charges $495 to send a portion of a person’s ashes into suborbital space.
The firm had originally planned to blast Doohan’s remains into space two years ago. But the flight was delayed by tests, then by a misfire during a practice launch last year.
During a 15-minute flight, the rocket separated into two parts and returned to Earth on parachutes with the capsules holding the remains. The maximum height reached was 384,000 feet or 72 miles .
Capsules containing the ashes are retrieved, mounted on plaques and given back to relatives.
In 1997, the company blasted the remains of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry into space.
The brief flight by the Spaceloft XL rocket was the first commercial launch from Spaceport America, the world’s first commercial spaceport, a US$225-million project developed with support from the New Mexico state government.
Reuters
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