James Doohan's Rocket Couldn't Take Much More: Scotty's Ashes Still Earthbound

The BBC is reporting that "some of the ashes" of James Doohan, best remembered as Star Trek's inimitable chief engineer Montgomery Scott, did not reach their final destination after their failed launch into space. That's certainly not the sort of story you read about everyday. According to Doohan's son, the "some of the ashes" means that not all of the ashes were ever intended for galactic travel.

When Doohan died at the age of 85 three years ago, his will requested that his final resting place be in the final frontier, and since then, it's been harder to accomplish than you'd think. According to the Beeb, Falcon 1 was supposed to send the ashes of 208 people into orbit, but the reusable rocket disintegrated shortly after launching from Kwajalein Atoll, shooting its payload into the ocean.

You just can't use the phrase "shooting its payload" in the 21st Century with a straight face. Can't be done. Falcon 1 is a creation of SpaceX, the company founded by PayPal's Elon Musk. Incidentally, that was what I always got my dad for Christmas growing up. He loved the smell of Elon Musk. The holiday gift set with the cologne, aftershave, and the soap-on-a-rope. I digress... If I were NASA, I would've offered to put him on the Phoenix, or maybe hold out until the manned mission to Mars. I don't trust this Falcon 1. None of the their launches have ever made it into orbit, and we've kind of been able to do that for almost 50 years.

Short of a NASA voyage, why not plan a ceremonial launch into space to commemorate the premiere of next summer's Star Trek and have Paramount pick up the tab? There's an outside-the-box marketing idea.

Comments

[Brandon]

Well he reached one of the last two final frontiers, the depths of the ocean. We know less about the deepest parts of the oceans than we do about the ends of space.

[Orinn]

This was the third attempt of a falcon launch. The third fail, they have 2-3 more rockets still lined up to try and launch. Nasa even had a cool little solar sail robot that they were going to test, launching on this thing. I dont know how you stay in business, the robot costs millions and everyones ashes are priceless, when your business is launching things into space, and all you do is blow things up on earth, how do you keep going?