Star Trek's Scotty boldly goes where he always wanted to

[afv011]

Elon Musk's Dragon spaceship that successfully took off this morning was carrying extra special secret cargo: Star Trek's Chief Engineer Scott.

The Falcon 9 rocket, which launched the privately funded SpaceX craft containing supplies and science experiments for the International Space Station, also took up the ashes of actor James Doohan - who played Scotty in the hit sci-fi saga.

Source

A star, now among the stars.

[Aurora W]

Heard this on the news on my way home tonight.

Sad that he's gone...but the story did put a smile on my face. The quote they used from him was brilliant - was one when he was describing in the most technical terms possible why the Enterprise couldn't do what he wanted it to do. I need to find a copy of it to use the next time I update the office website...

[frostschutz]

It's not the first time they send his ashes into space. Gravity sucks.

Summary from Wikipedia:

Almost two years after his death, approximately one-quarter ounce (7 grams) of Doohan's ashes were sent into space,[15] as he had requested in his will. The ashes, along with those of Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper as well as almost two hundred others, were launched on the SpaceLoft XL rocket, on April 28, 2007, when the rocket briefly entered outer space in a four-minute suborbital flight before parachuting to earth, as planned, with the ashes still inside.[16] The ashes were subsequently launched on a Falcon 1 rocket, on August 3, 2008, into what was intended to be a low Earth orbit, however the rocket failed two minutes after launch.[17] The rest of his ashes were scattered over Puget Sound in Washington.[18][19] On May 22, 2012, a small urn containing some of Doohan's remains in ash form was flown into space aboard the Dragon spacecraft as part of COTS Demo Flight 2.[20]