Star Trek's 'Scotty' Goes Into Space
Posted on: Saturday, 28 April 2007, 12:00 CDT
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
UPHAM, N.M. - The cremated remains of actor James Doohan, who portrayed engineer "Scotty" on "Star Trek," and of Apollo 7 astronaut Gordon Cooper soared into suborbital space Saturday aboard a rocket.
It was the first successful launch from Spaceport America, a commercial spaceport being developed in the southern New Mexico desert.
Suzan Cooper and Wende Doohan fired the rocket carrying small amounts of their husbands' ashes at 8:56 a.m. local time.
"Go baby, go baby," said Eric Knight of the commercial launch company, UP Aerospace Inc. of Farmington, Conn.
Since it was a suborbital flight, the rocket soon plummeted back to Earth, coming down at the White Sands Missile Range.
"We nailed it. We stuck the landing," said Knight.
UP Aerospace launched the first rocket from the desert site in September, but that Spaceloft XL rocket crashed into the desert after spiraling out of control about nine seconds after liftoff. Company officials blamed the failure on a faulty fin design.
Family members paid $495 to place a few grams of their relatives' ashes on the rocket. Celestis, a Houston company, contracted with UP to send the cremated remains into space.
Charles Chafer, chief executive of Celestis, said last month that a CD with more than 11,000 condolences and fan notes was placed on the rocket with Doohan's remains.
Doohan died in July 2005 at age 85. The remains of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry were sent into space in 1997.
The launch from the fledgling spaceport - currently a 100-foot by 25-foot concrete slab in a patch of desert more than 50 miles north of Las Cruces - keeps the New Mexico project ahead of its nearest competitor, in West Texas.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, is said to be developing the spaceport north of Van Horn, Texas. Bezos' Blue Origin is working to develop tourist space flights.
British billionaire Richard Branson also has announced plans to launch a space tourism company, which is expected to have its headquarters at the New Mexico spaceport.
Source: Associated Press/AP Online
Related Articles
- Rocket Racing Inc., Armadillo Aerospace and New Mexico Create Joint Venture to Launch Private Suborbital Space Transportation Business
- European Space Lab Set for Launch
- Doohan Remains to Be Launched Into Space
- SpaceX Launches New Rocket Into Space
- Unmanned Rocket Crashes in N.M. Desert
- Challenger Center for Space Science Education to Launch New Program With $150,000 Toyota USA Foundation Award
- Brazil Launches Their First Rocket Into Space
- Brazil Launches Rocket into Space
- FAA Clears the Civilian Space eXploration Team --CSXT-- to Launch the World's First Amateur Rocket into Space.
- Joint Chinese-European Space Mission Ready for Launch
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds