ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Dust Thou Art, And Unto Cosmic Dust Shalt Thou Return
The ashes of actress Majel Barrett Roddenberry and those of her husband, “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, will be launched into the final frontier on a memorial spaceflight scheduled for 2012, reports Space.com:
“I am pleased to announce today that we have planned a very compelling future memorial service for my mother and father,” said Roddenberry's son Eugene Roddenberry, Jr., in a statement. “The spacecraft is currently planned for launch in 2012 and it will carry their spirits, their memories, and the message of their life's work into the cosmos.”
The ashes of Majel and Gene Roddenberry will be launched on the Voyager Memorial Spaceflight Service arranged by the Houston-based firm Celestis, Inc., which offers a range of memorial spaceflight services, including burial on the moon. Celestis' next flight, the Earth Orbit Service, is due to launch later this year.
The company launched a portion of Gene Roddenberry's ashes into space in 1997 along with those of 23 other people during its debut Founders Flight, which launched aboard an Orbital Sciences Pegasus rocket. Gene Roddenberry died in 1991.
In 2007, Celestis launched another group of ashes, which included those of "Star Trek" actor James Doohan and Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, aboard a suborbital UP Aerospace rocket that launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Apparently not wanting to take any chances, Doohan divvied up his ashes amongst several companies that provide memorial spaceflights, including Denver-based UP Aerospace and Celestis affiliate Space Services. Good thing, too: A May 13, 2007 Space Services launch carrying his ashes fell back to Earth, landing in a mountainous area in NM.
Editorial Note: If you want to loft a tribute to the Roddenberrys into the heavens along with their ashes, click here.
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