James Doohan Had His Ashes Flown Into Space
Star Trek Archive/CBSJames Doohan portrayed Scotty on the original Star Trek television series.
James Doohan is best known for his role as chief engineer Montgomery Scott, a.k.a. Scotty, on the original Star Trek television series, but according to a 2020 report from The Verge, Doohan is also known for being the only person to be smuggled onto the International Space Station after his death.
In 2005, Doohan died at the age of 85, having never achieved his dream of getting on the ISS one day. His family wanted to honor that wish, or at the very least get him into space. In 2008, a portion of Doohan’s ashes were launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket — which failed just minutes after launch.
In 2012, another portion of his ashes were sent into space aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9, and have since orbited the Earth more than 70,000 times. But still, Doohan never made it to the ISS, alive or dead.
That is, no one knew that he had.
It was later revealed that although all official requests to bring Doohan’s ashes onto the station were denied, Richard Garriott — one of the first private citizens to travel on the ISS — happened to smuggle a portion of Doohan’s ashes into the station’s Columbus module, along with a laminated photo of the late actor.
Garriott snuck the laminated photograph and the ashes on board and hid them away under the floor of the Columbus. For years, no one knew about it other than Garriott and Doohan’s family.
“It was completely clandestine,” Garriott said. “His family were very pleased that the ashes made it up there but we were all disappointed we didn’t get to talk about it publicly for so long. Now enough time has passed that we can.”
