Richard Garriott
Garriott is no stranger to the field of space flight. His father, Owen Garriott, was an astronaut on Skylab-3 and Space Shuttle mission STS-9 with the Spacelab project. Richard, a video game designer and engineer by trade, flew to the ISS aboard a Soyuz craft and while there filmed the movie 'Apogee of Fear' completely in space.
Chris Doohan, son of the famed engineer and uncredited extra in several Trek movies, requested that his father's ashes be laid in the stars. It was one of his last desires, and was met by Garriott back in 2008. Garriott discussed the timing of this news with The Times saying, “It was completely clandestine. 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.”
It is just now hitting headlines 12 years later. And as far as anyone can tell, the ashes are still stowed aboard the ISS to this day. Other things have been hidden on the ISS such as messages from various repair and mission crews and the recent Baby Yoda brought aboard via SpaceX Crew-1 earlier this year.
James Doohan passed away in 2005 and, while some of his ashes were sent into space a couple other times, this was a highlight for his family. They know right where he is - a mere 240 miles or 400 kilometers above the surface of the Earth.
Talk about "boldly going where no man has gone before!" Let us know what you think in the comments below.
WRITTEN BY Caymen Greener
EDITED BY Silek
