04 August 2008

"She canna take any more, captain. She's gonna blow!"

"...thanks to the Ansari X Prize, private rocketeers have been working hard to end the state monopoly on spaceflight. Unfortunately, it's not all smooth launching, as Space X discovered with the loss of its Falcon 1 rocket yesterday.

Space X hasn't just lost a rocket, though. The flight was carrying a trio of small satellites belonging to NASA and the DoD. Perhaps less seriously, but probably more newsworthy, the ashes of over 200 people were also on board, including a pair of rather well known astronauts, one actual, one fictional. They were Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury 7, and "Scotty" himself, James Doohan.

(Reddit discussion here, including the inevitable comment that maybe Scotty was cremated wearing a red shirt)

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