f13.net

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=454117&in_page_id=1811
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In Star Trek terms, it was a simple mission.

But the company that blasted the ashes of James Doohan - better known as Scotty - into space has been forced to admit that the rocket they used has been lost.

The plan was simple: the actor's remains, along with those of 213 others, were put on board a rocket to be fired into 'sub-orbital space'.

The craft would shoot upwards 72 miles before splitting in two and parachuting back to Earth so the ashes could be returned to relatives.

But the mission went drastically wrong and the rocket has been lost for two weeks in the New Mexico desert.

Susan Schonfeld, of Space Services Inc, said that search teams has repeatedly failed to find the craft in the area where it is believed to have landed.

She said: "The terrain is very mountainous - it's not somewhere that you can walk or drive to and the weather there has been horrendous."

The disaster will upset Doohan's widow, Wende, who has been planning the send-off for two years since his death in 2005 at the age of 85.

She has said the man who travelled on so many missions with the Enterprise always regretted that he never made it into space himself.

Doohan played the starship Enterprise's chief engineer Montgomery Scott in the original 1966-1969 Star Trek television series.

He inspired the legendary catch phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" - even though it was never actually uttered on the show.

Space Services Inc. charges £250 to send a portion of a person's ashes into suborbital space.

In 1997 the company blasted the remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry into space.

People pay $500 to have something shot up into the air and then fall down again?  For that kind of money I'd want my ashes to STAY in space, dammit.

Also, why the fuck don't they stick a GPS or a little blinky light or something on that thing instead of trying (and failing) to predict exactly where it'll fall down?

Wow, that really sucks. :cry:

I bet you NORAD knows, or could figure out, to within a few hundred feet where that rocket came down at.  They would have had it on RADAR during it's flight and ballistic trajectories and wind patterns over the US are very well understood.  Too bad they probably can't tell anyone.

He should have just been left in a pattern buffer  :cry:

It's always New Mexico.

The government has the ashes. Call David Duchovny and Mitch Pileggi.

So basically it's a big Estes rocket?

Here's the thing. Space travel is tough. You might call it rocket science.

If you want to cowboy it, there's going to be problems. The whole NASA risk-averse behaviour stuff.

That Virgin Galactic stuff is comedy gold waiting to happen. Space tourism, heh. Retards (but I bet they'll make a mint selling tickets until the first batch of wealthy folks dies in space or re-entry or on the launch pad or...).

I vote we send oil and pharma executives on the first flights. And every successive flight until one goes KABLOOEY.

Don't forget the insurance CEOs.

Then we can just send ambulance chasers in subsequent flights. Then house flippers. I really have a long list.

And KABLOOEY is guaranteed by the thermonuclear warhead on each flight. Set humanity ahead a hundred years.

WE'RE NOT TERRORISTS.



Jeez Sky, they're watching, you can't just type out things like that.

He's just .. uh, talking about project orion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29). Right? RIGHT?

Isn't it pronounced "terrists?"

I'll give it another two weeks tops before Doohan's ashes turn up on eBay.

Number 1, assemble an away team!

If we reverse the polirity on the main deflector dish we could scan for his comlink in the ashes....

Too many tachyons in the area, you will have to use the hydrogen collectors to focus the signal.

But the away team was setting up signal boosters!

Gorn infestation.

My suspicion is that there was some sort of trouble with tribbles.

No it was the starboard power coupling, that thing was THE weak link in federation starship design.

I'd choose "my ashes blasted into space and then lost in the desert" over "my ashes blasted into space" anyway. Plus getting lost in harsh terrain was just as much part of oldschool Star Trek as space.

Scotty finally earned that redshirt.

Ashes found:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070518/en_nm/scotty_dc

Vacuum me up.

Attempt #3 fails spectacularly as well (http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/08/rocket-trekking.html)

At what point do you say; Well.. we'll just hold on to the rest until someone does this on a regular basis. Yes, it's his last wish, but he's dead.. timeframe doesn't play into the fulfillment.

They didnae have the pooooaaarrrrrr!

That one was on the other day...