Wow

[karohemd]

Majel Barret Roddenberry and Gene Roddenberry to receive space burial (Metro)
Space Travel for Star Trek couple (BBC News)

I hope the "capsules" look like movie style photon torpedoes, like the one they used for Spock.

Comments

[eryx-uk.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know that she had died.

Tsk tsk

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

December last year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7791210.stm)

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

I'm in two minds about this sort of thing. On the one hand, I think it's a lovely thought and a nice gesture.

On the other hand, I think it's awfully expensive to launch some ashes into space. How about taking the money the launch would cost and donating it to a leukaemia charity?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I'm in two minds about it, too.
The latter thought is lovely, too, and the former seems like a waste of money but it seems to have been Majel's wish.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

I just wonder how much of NASA's time and resources are given over to this kind of thing, when they should be concentrating on legitimate scientific work? Then again, maybe they make a profit out of it, and the money gets plowed back into the space program?

I mean, I'd love to go into space, but only while I'm alive!

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

Celestis, the company that do this aren't part of NASA. They did get a capsule on the Lunar Prospector mission with Gene Shoemaker's ashes. Several of their launches haven't made it out of earth orbit.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Aha, I assumed they were buying space aboard NASA rockets. My bad.

In that case, if it's the wishes of the dead people and their relatives are happy to pay for it, I'm all for it.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

It's not NASA, it's a private company, as suggested here (http://www.celestis.com/services_voyager.asp).

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's OK then. I had assumed the company were like agents between the relatives and NASA, but it seems they do their own rocket launches.

So that's cool. I'm all for an increase in commercial space flight. :)

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

I think it depends how they do it. They dropped Eugene Shoemaker's ashes on the moon as part of a NASA mission that was going there anyway. Private companies doing it? Meh I don't see the point frankly.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

Isn't that Shatner holding a giant penis in your icon?

Err... why? :)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

No, it's a stalactite. Honestly. Not a giant pink dildo. ;oP
It is a genuine scene from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Are_Little_Girls_Made_Of%3F).

However, you're not the only one to think so:
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/joe469/2700570730/)

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

The moral of the story - do not piss your set designers off :D