The Final Frontier

The late James Doohan (1920-2005) has always a favorite of mine, among the original Star Trek cast of actors...No matter what was going on behind the scenes--he always made sure that his character of Chief Engineer Scott, had a sense of fun about him, and oh that glint in his eye...

A year after his death,Tim Korte of The Associated Press reports that some of Doohan's remains are about to take a special trip.

... a few grams of his ashes blasted 70 miles into space this fall from southern New Mexico.

Houston-based Space Services Inc. plans to have the ashes of 100 others aboard the Oct. 21 "memorial spaceflight" _ among them, Gordon Cooper, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts.

Doohan died last July at age 85. His widow, Wende Doohan, said he would have wanted such a send-off.

"If the privatization of space was available when he was alive, he would have been first in line with a window-seat ticket," she told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday. "It's a way to honor something he would have loved to have done."



Doohan appearing as Captain Montgomery ("Scotty") Scott in the 1994 Trek feature Star Trek: Generations. Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Eliott Marks

What a fitting send off...The family of Trek creator Gene Roddenberry made sure that some of his remains took a similar flight, following his death in 1991...