James Doohan, Star Trek’s Montgomery “Scotty Scott made a final trip to space, three years after his death in 2005. At Christmas, the story of a clandestine plan to bring some of the actor’s ashes to the International Space Station has finally been revealed.
Doohan reached the final frontier
On Christmas Day, The Times of the United Kingdom revealed that in 2008 businessman Richard Garriott smuggled some of Doohan’s ashes to the ISS on his 12-day mission as a private astronaut. The clandestine operation was planned together with Doohan’s son Chris, with the approval of the Doohan family.
The plan had Garriott hiding a laminated card with Doohan’s photo and some of his ashes under the floor covering of the station’s Columbus module. According to The Times, Doohan’s ashes “traveled nearly 1.7 billion miles through space, orbiting the Earth more than 70,000 times, after their ashes were secretly hidden in the International Space Station.”
Doohan’s ashes were sealed inside a laminated cardboard and hidden under the cover of the International Space Station (The Times)
“It was completely clandestine… His family was very satisfied with the ashes, but we were all disappointed that we hadn’t talked about it publicly for so long. Enough time has passed now that we can, ”Garriott told The Times. “As far as I know, nobody ever saw him there and nobody moved him. James Doohan had his resting place among the stars. “
James Doohan in his last appearance as Scotty in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations
Garriott’s 2008 ISS smuggling operation was actually the third attempt to bring James Doohan’s ashes into space. In 2007, some of its ashes flew in a suborbital rocket, and in August 2008, there was a failed attempt aboard a SpaceX rocket (the company successfully launched some of Doohan’s ashes into space in 2012). Wishing to comply with his father’s request to be buried in space, Chris Doohan sought out Garriott shortly before he was launched into space in October 2008.
As the last-minute request came after everything Garriott planned to bring on the trip had already been recorded, there was a concern to add the ashes, so it was decided “very carefully” that the plan would be kept secret. “Richard said ‘We need to keep this silence for a while’ and here we are 12 years later. What he did was moving – it meant a lot to me, a lot to my family and it would have meant a lot to my dad, ”said Chris Doohan to The Times.
Soyuz rocket launches Richard Garriott (with Doohan’s ashes) to the ISS on October 12, 2008 (Getty)
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