04.03
The ashes of Star Trek’s Scotty and one of NASA’s first astronauts are once more bound for the final frontier, this time aboard a privately-built rocket to launch from New Mexico this month.
Portions of the cremated remains of actor James Doohan, the plucky engineer of television’s Starship Enterprise, and Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper are set for an April 28 launch aboard a SpaceLoft XL rocket built by the private firm UP Aerospace.
The space shot – dubbed SL-2 – will lift off from Spaceport America, a state-funded launch site near Upham, New Mexico and about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of the city of Las Cruces.
The remains of Doohan, Cooper and more than 200 people from over 10 different countries will ride the UP Aerospace rocket as part of the Legacy of Flight memorial, a spaceflight arranged for the Houston-based firm Celestis, Inc. A public memorial honoring those whose remains will launch spaceward is set for April 27 at the New Mexico Space History Museum in Alamagordo.
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