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It is not exactly where no man has been before, but it is the closest humanity has to it. According to Deadline, video game developer Richard Garriott revealed on Sunday Times that, when traveling to the International Space Station in 2008, he allegedly brought with him the ashes belonging to actor James Doohan, better known in turn as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, the tormented flight engineer. Star TrekUSS Enterprise. Doohan passed away in 2005 at the age of 85.
According to Garriott, he was contacted by the son of actor Chris Doohan as he prepared to visit the International Space Station via the Russian Soyuz TMA-13 mission for a 12-day self-funded stay, making him one of the first private citizens to do so. it. Garriott received the cremains, but says there was not enough time to subject them to the official process necessary to bring the objects on board. He later hid several laminated photos of Doohan on board, which contained some of his ashes, and secretly placed one of the letters behind the floor covering of the station’s Columbus module.
“It was completely clandestine,” Garriott told Sunday Times, who also published a video of him with the card at the station. “His family was very satisfied with the ashes, but we were all disappointed that we hadn’t talked about it publicly for so long. Now, enough time has passed for us to. ”A second card was allegedly launched into space by Garriott, and a third was returned to Chris Doohan. A separate sample of the actor’s ashes was launched on a SpaceX rocket in 2012.
“Richard said, ‘We need to keep this secret for a while,’ and here we are 12 years later,” said the late actor’s son. “What he did was play – it meant a lot to me, a lot to my family and it would have meant a lot to my dad. My father had three passions: space, science and trains. He always wanted to go to space. “