Star Trek's Scotty boldly goes where he always wanted to Elon Musk's Dragon spaceship that successfully took off this morning was carrying extra special secret cargo: Star Trek's Chief Engineer Scott. The Falcon 9 rocket, which launched the privately funded SpaceX craft containing supplies and science experiments for the International Space Station, also took up the ashes of actor …
He once said something like his character was "99% Doohan, 1% accent". I don't think he was that sad in the role he played, or would be disappointed with the way he was sent off (you honestly think he wouldn't have wanted his fans/family to say "The engine's cannae take it, cap'n!" on the first two failed attempts to launch his remains and have a good laugh about it?)
I'm not a Trekkie, I can just about tolerate TNG for an episode or two before I want to blow my brains out, let alone the earlier stuff, but I can recognise something there in the actor himself - he seemed happier to get kids into engineering courses from his influence than anything else.
I think I'd rather be remembered as a character like Scotty, or even better, an actor with Doohan's attitude, than not remembered at all. A lot more "famous" people do a lot less and make much bigger arses of themselves for the sake of money or a career.
I'd rather die with humour and parody following me than without. If I'd been the actor who'd uttered the words: "He's dead, Jim", they would have been etched on my grave. What a way to be remembered.
Watch this and tell me he wasn't just an actor:
This post has been deleted by its author
£31 extra would have got her in space...
[rant]
WTG local council... that's one way to stop dead people from being a burden to you. Price them out of communicable graves. I guess it's less bodies to move when you finally decide to actually live up to your responsibilities to build houses.
[/rant]
Honestly, I think as great as it is for James Doohan's ashes to be in orbit for a year before burning up on reentry, it's not exactly the respect deserved.
I know he was just an actor playing a role but that role affected the lives of so many people, especially Scientists, Researchers and Astronauts. A lot of the people who designed, built and put the ISS in orbit, those who built the rockets to get the astronauts there, and the astronauts themselves all would have been inspired even a little by Mr Scott and James Doohan.
I think his ashes should have been placed in a sealed container to be placed in a prime location inside the crew area of the ISS, as kind of a memorial or patron of seat-of-the-pants engineering and spaceflight. In fact, he should be joined by Gene and Majel Roddenberry.
Now, while I don't think the Next Generation is all that bad they couldn't match the acting qualities of Scotty IMO.
"Relics"; as a passenger on the starship Jenolan Scotty is involved in a crash onto the surface of a strange globe. He and a person called "Franklin" are the only survivors of the crash. Aware that they're from a position far away from normal routes Scotty realizes that a rescue might take a while so he decides what he does best: by rigging the transporter he manages to get it into a continuous diagnostic cycle. Then he transports himself and Franklin; being the first person to survive for 60 years inside a transporter.
In this episode you get to see Scotty and LaForge together and quite frankly I think Scotty was the better engineer. When he started talking about the Dyson sphere you could /hear/ the enthusiasm and awe he had for the "technological achievement". To which LaForge could only flatly comment: "Yeah, its quite impressive" while sounding as he didn't even really mean it.
That guy was a classic... "Synthetic scotch, synthetic commanders....".
However, I do think the guy who plays Data does manage to come very close with his acting. Very well seen when he offers Scotty a drink of a non-synthahol beverage..
Scotty: "What is it?"
Data: "It is...." Data looks at the bottle, only to see there's no label on it.
He then opens the bottle to identify the scent, fully convinced that he can now answer Scotty's question Data starts: "It is....", but apparently this isn't part of his memory banks.
Data looks at Scotty: "It is green.".
Scotty now makes a gesture saying "Well, let me have it".
That dear reader is what I call a classic :-)
That was a good one, with the best quote from the series.
"Please enter program."
"The android at the bar said ya' could show me ma' old ship. Lemme see it."
"Insufficient Data. Please specify parameters."
"The Enterprise! Show me the bridge of the Enterprise, ya' chatterin' piece of..."
"There have been five Federation ships with that name. Please specify by registry number."
"NCC-1701. No bloody A, B, C, or D."
"Program complete. Enter when ready."
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
R.L. Stevenson 1850 -1894
RIP Scotty!
I rather admired the tribute NASA gave to Eugene Shoemaker. As well as discovering the comet that whacked into Jupiter, he was the great planetary geologist who proved Barringer Crater was actually meteoritic in origin and that the Earth did have a record of large impacts. He was also the pioneer of understanding how and when the Moon's craters formed.
So NASA gave him the send off he deserved, they placed a small portion of his ashes on the Lunar Prospector probe which was crashed into the South Pole of the Moon in the hope of discovering ice. In the process it carved out a new crater.
He played an engineer on a starship. He wanted his ashes to go into space. They did, though not as grandly as he'd have liked, I expect. I think his spirit has a much greater view now than the miniscule remains launched into orbit for a year will ever get. The unfeeling atoms of his remains are irrelevant anyway.
James Doohan seemed to be an earnest, unpretentious man that enjoyed his bit of fame and certainly gave a smile and maybe some inspiration to a couple of generations of people, and maybe a few to come.
I know that being the techie I am, Star Trek helped shape my world view and inspired me.
Rest in peace Scotty.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
