Space & Astronomy

Scotty's ashes were smuggled aboard the ISS

By T.K. Randall
December 27, 2020 ·  6 comments

Doohan's Star Trek character became a household name. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 C Thomas Best known for his iconic role as engineer Montgomery Scott (or "Scotty") in Gene Rodenberry's original 'Star Trek' TV series and subsequent movies, James Doohan died aged 85 back in 2005.

After his death, efforts were made to have some of his ashes launched into space.

On April 28th, 2007, a memorial rocket launch, which also carried the ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper, flew into space for a four-hour suborbital flight before returning to Earth.

The following year, Doohan's ashes were placed aboard a Falcon 1 rocket with the intention of launching them into low-Earth orbit, however the rocket failed two minutes after launch.Four years later, his ashes were again launched into space - this time aboard a Falcon 9 rocket - as part of the COTS Demo Flight 2 mission.

As it turns out however - there had actually been another successful effort to send Doohan's ashes into the final frontier - one carried out by space tourist Richard Garriot who had launched to the International Space Station for 12 days back in 2008.

Backed by Doohan's son, Garriot had smuggled a small card containing some of the late actor's ashes up into space with him where he hid it underneath the cladding in the station's Columbus module.

In fitting tribute to Doohan - they have since traveled more than 1.7 billion miles through space.

Source: Deadline | Comments (6)

Tags: ISS, Scotty