On Tuesday, the ashes of actor James Doohan, who played the beloved Scotty on Star Trek, will be blasted into space along with the ashes of 308 other people. The Falcon 9 rocket is set to launch from Cape Canaveral by a company called Space X, which belongs to a billionaire from South Africa named Elon Musk.
This first ever space mission organized by a private firm will be carrying, aside from the precious cargo, 1000 lbs. of food and supplies to the space station. Nine minutes into the flight, the capsule with the ashes is scheduled to separate from the Falcon 9 and from there will orbit for a year before heading back to earth and disintegrating upon re-entry. It only costs $3,000. to do this, if anyone’s interested.
Of course this won’t be the first time they’ve attempted to send poor Scotty’s ashes into space. Back in 2007 they managed to send them up there where they floated around in space for only a few minutes, after which they fell back down to earth and were lost out in the desert in New Mexico for a couple weeks. A year later Space X tried again, sending just a portion of the ashes out, only to have the rocket explode not long after take off and land somewhere out in the Pacific. This launch has already had several delays. Hopefully, Scotty will finally get beamed up for good on Tuesday.
[Source: Telegraph]
Loading ...