LOS ANGELES: The remains of the creator of Star Trek and the ashes of the actor who played Scotty are to blast off into space. The ashes of Gene Roddenberry, who conceived the original 1960s TV series, will head for the final frontier alongside those of James Doohan, who played the starship Enterprise's Scottish engineer. Roddenberry's ashes will also be accompanied by those of his wife on the Nov 2014 launch by memorial spaceflight company Celestis. They will be part of a cargo that includes other cremated remains, written messages and samples of DNA in capsules sent by the general public.–ON
"What's very cool about this is that it's science fiction meeting reality," said Celestis spokeswoman Pazia Schonfeld.
The remains will travel on a spacecraft called a solar sail, which is powered by sunlight and made to withstand high temperatures, and will head for orbit around the Sun, according to the company.
The journey will be captured by on-board cameras on and streamed online.
It will not be the first time the remains of Roddenberry, who died in October 1991 at age 70, and Doohan, who was 85 when he died in 2005, have been into space.
Roddenberry was part of Celestis' inaugural flight in 1997, when his remains were taken on a trip into space before returning to Earth.
An urn containing some of Doohan's remains was also sent into space in 2012.
Doohan became identified with the phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" in reference to the constant requests for him to bring people back on board the Enterprise.
The phrase was never actually uttered on the cult show.
There is still room on the space flight, with the price for sending a loved-one's ashes into orbit starting at $12,500 (£8,057).