The ashes of actor James Doohan, who played Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek, were lost on the way to space on Sunday morning, when the rocket carrying them malfunctioned minutes after take-off.

The actor's ashes were among those of 208 people, including Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, who had paid to have their remains fired into space aboard Falcon 1, a rocket developed by the private space company SpaceX.

The launch, from the US Army's Reagan Test Site on Omelek Island in the Pacific, appeared to be perfect, but within a few minutes live footage from an on-board camera went dead. Engineers later said that the two stages of the rocket had failed to separate.

The rocket was also carrying three small satellites, including the Nasa-built miniature laboratory PRESat, a solar sail demonstrator called NanoSail-D, plus a Pentagon satellite called Trailblazer.

The accident is the third in a row for SpaceX, which was set up in 2002 by the internet entrepreneur Elon Musk.

The company hopes eventually to be able to fly supplies and possibly crew to the International Space Station.

Sources

___________________
Epicsketch Inc: our nightly exploits would be a humorous diversion that would magically transmute the dreary workaday world into a fanciful realm of zany hijinks

remember: DO*EPIC*SHIT! always
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://twibbon.com/embed/Daffodil-Month-2012"></script>