Scotty Is Beamed Up

The ashes of James Doohan, who portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott on the original "Star Trek" television series, have finally been blasted into space. His earthly remains had some good space company on Saturday: the great Mercury original Col. Gordon Cooper. (For those of you who remember "The Right Stuff," Dennis Quaid portrayed Cooper.)

Wende Doohan, the wife of the Star Trek actor, spoke of her late husband: "It's not how you die, or when, but rather how you lived." In his role, Scotty was "engineer extraordinaire", she continued, completing his five year mission in three years and that "he's in good company on this flight."

Suzan Cooper, the wife of the late Gordon Cooper explained: "Supposedly, we are all made of stardust. So then it is only natural to one day return to the stars once our lives have ended on this Earth."

"We are all here to celebrate the lives of friends and loved ones ... and to embrace an incredible new technology which allows anyone to leave the boundaries of Earth and actually travel into space," Cooper said.

We wrote a tribute to Doohan back when he died in 2005. There, you can read about his near-death experience as part of the Canadian D-Day assault on Juno Beach.

Godspeed, Scotty and Gordo.