James "Scotty" Doohan smuggled aboard the International Space Station!

Cafe Society
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According to his family, NASA turned dowm James Doohan’s request to have some of his asahes placed about the International Space Station. But they got him up there anyway.

[quote]

Doohan’s son Chris contacted [Video game entrepreneur Richard] Garriott before his trip to the stars, asking Garriott to fulfill his late father’s wish to be “laid to rest among the stars.” Upon receiving Doohan’s ashes, Garriott printed three cards that featured a photograph of Doohan and laminated them with a sprinkling of ashes sealed inside. He managed to get one of the cards onboard the ISS and hid it under the cladding on the floor of the space station’s Columbus module.

This is the first time Garriott or the family has revealed Doohan’s presence on the station and, to their knowledge, he’s still up there, twelve years later.

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Rest in Space Scotty.

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Now that, that is very ST in style and spirit. Worthy of something that Kirk and Scotty would cook up to get around some Federation rule.

And considering Doohan was the one member of the original cast who was an IRL action/adventure hero, even more so appropriate.

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And even more cool that it was Lord British who smuggled him up.

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Hmm. I suppose it’s time to share my own story of smuggling human remains onto the International Space Station.

As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I’ve worked on a few cubesats at this point. They get launched in several different ways, but one of those ways is for them to be shipped to the ISS in a cargo capsule (Cygnus, Dragon, etc.), which is unloaded into the space station proper. The dispensers are then put into an airlock, and either activated from there or grabbed by Canadarm and aimed somewhere else before dispensing. The cubesats shoot out of a little spring-loaded tube (there is an alternate method involving having a Russian throw the cubesat out the airlock, but we did not go that route).

My grandfather died shortly before our first launch. He was the origin of my career (computers) and my interest in math and the sciences, and space in particular. I don’t know where I’d be without him, but it wouldn’t be where I am today. I knew I had to do something in his memory. Initially I was going to put up a small memorial, maybe just electronic, but I knew I had to do something more significant.

I did much of the final integration work on our cubesats. That gave me the opportunity to add his ashes. I sealed a few milligrams of them between two strips of Kapton tape, alongside a small printed “plaque”, and attached it to the bottom plate of the cubesat, below the batteries where no one would be the wiser.

The ISS does not allow human remains onboard, or at least didn’t. So I kept quiet, except to my immediate family. I was not even sure he’d make it to the ISS at all, as there are no hard guarantees about the ride, but getting him to space was enough for me.

Unlike Scotty, my grandfather only spent a few months onboard the ISS (I did not have a Lord British to hide the remains somewhere). After that, the cubesat was sent flying, and remained on orbit for about 9 months (cubesats do not last long at that altitude).

RIP, Grampy.

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That’s beautiful; good on you. RIP Grampy.

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Only on this message board would you see a post that starts that way.

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Thank you for the condolences. It’s been several years now, but the little memorial has had its intended effect–on the living. Namely, me. Every time I read a story like this, or about cubesats, or some other activity in space, it’s a gentle reminder of what he did to instill a sense of wonder in space and other sciences.

I won’t deny a small pleasure in being one of a very, very small group of people to have smuggled something into space. Though doing so has a long and storied history at this point, starting with John Young’s corned beef sandwich in 1965.

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That was a fantastic way to honor your grandfather.

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Reading this feels like a good way to start a year. :smiley:

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Agreed!