Someone snuck James Doohan’s ashes onto the International Space Station

Scotty has secretly been orbiting Earth for years.

Associated Press / NASA

James Doohan, known to sci-fi fans everywhere as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, engineer of the starship Enterprise, left a spectacular if difficult wish after he passed away in 2005. The original Star Trek cast member wanted a portion of his ashes left on the International Space Station.

His family was able to get some of his ashes aboard SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket in 2008, but it, unfortunately, failed to reach orbit. Four years later, his ashes did make it to space on another SpaceX rocket, the Falcon 9.

We now know that Doohan's ultimate request — that his ashes make it to space and stay there on the ISS — was granted 12 years ago in secret.

According to The Times of London, Doohan's family could not officially transport James' ashes to the space station so they hatched a plan with multi-millionaire video game developer Richard Garriott to smuggle them into orbit. The son of an astronaut, Garriott is one of only a few private citizens who have gone to space — and he paid $30 million for the trip!

Garriott hid James Doohan's ashes, along with a laminated photograph, under the floor of the space station's Columbus module.

"What he did was touching — it meant so much to me, so much to my family and it would have meant so much to my dad," said Chris Doohan.

It is indeed a fitting resting place for one of the most recognizable actors in all of television science fiction.

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20 Comments

srrainwater 36 months ago
Lucky ashes! Living my dream!
SFocosi 39 months ago
As I have written before: Scotty's famous rejoinders:
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. My addend to this, Fool me thrice, all bets are off!!!
SFocosi SFocosi 39 months ago
I hope this is not a METv lie???
MichaelFields 39 months ago
YOu know for a price there is a company that lauches 3 flights a year of peoples ashes into space and orbit, and they are even going to this coming year 2021, launch a ship with ashes to the moon. And some highly famous people have done this, if you get the package where it just orbits when it comes back you get the ashes back and a certificate saying it was in space, when it happened and every launch like apollo gets a special patch of the flight
My dad's last wife did exactly that with some of Dad's ashes. It took several tries to get that suborbital lob completed. We found out later that some of Jimmy Doohan also flew on that mission- in fact, due to alphabetizing the little capsules in the launch canister my dad and Jimmy flew right next to each other! It is as you say, I have the little canister and the certificate among my dad's things. He was a rocket motor engineer and super space enthusiast his whole life, even applying for Shuttle Mission Specialist at one point.
Well, hoooo-eeee! Just caught that this article is almost 20 months old. I always find the bleeding edge.
Hogansucks1 39 months ago
Technically, James Doohan-(Montgomery Scott), is a stowaway ! 😁. 🖖
Hogansucks1 39 months ago
Wemher Von Braun, Carl Sagan, Gene Roddenberry, Stephen Hawking, among others, all respectfully, have a place on my spaceship!!! 😊. ☮️
Hogansucks1 39 months ago
At around $2700 per kilogram for Any cargo to launch on a rocket to Earth orbit- and very restrictive protocol by N.A.S.A; I am glad they did that for James and family/ fans! A quite proper place for a bloody engineer, indubitably! 😊
Whillop 39 months ago
It'll all burn up when the station de-orbits .
harlow1313 39 months ago
This sort of rubs me the wrong way. After all, he was a pretend spaceman. Spread his ashes in the Hollywood Hills, more befitting an actor.
Hogansucks1 harlow1313 39 months ago
Why not? They sent Timothy Leary’s up to orbit years ago ! 😁 🤪
harlow1313 Hogansucks1 39 months ago
That seems equally silly to me.
Rob 39 months ago
Still givin’ her all she’s got! RIP Scotty.
Hogansucks1 Rob 39 months ago
A toast to Montgomery Scott with a wee bit of scotch whiskey/ Romulan Ale is called for lass !! 😬
jaelinsmith40652 39 months ago
Why would they left the ashes on the space station.
Pacificsun 39 months ago
I thought it was Gene Roddenberry who made the first request, at least the one which made it into the media! Did they ever grant that one?
cperrynaples 39 months ago
Looks like Scotty finally got to be beamed up...LOL!
Pacificsun cperrynaples 39 months ago
I'm not sure if this is true, but it's been said, that there was actually never any line (dialogue) that literally said "Beam me up, Scotty!"
Patsy Pacificsun 39 months ago
Bill Shatner confirmed
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