The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: May 13, 2007

Official News - page 7


REAL LIFE NEWS: SCOTTY'S ASHES LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS

by Hazed

This is a strange story. The ashes of actor James Doohan, who played Scotty in Star Trek, have gone missing after being fired into space along with the ashes of 200 others.

The idea is that a small sample of the ashes in sent up into sub-orbital space briefly. When they land on Earth again, they are retrieved and returned to the families with a memorial plaque detailing their final journey. For the Star Trek actor this must have seemed particularly apt.

But things did not go as planned. The rocket launched successfully and kept on a perfect trajectory, and the parachute carrying the capsules deployed perfectly, but the capsule landed in rocky terrain in the New Mexico mountains, and now it can't be found. Pause for Star Trek jokes about losing the landing party, the engines not being able to take it, and so on.

According to reports, the payload was equipped with a tracking device, but the mountains are interfering with the signal. They've narrowed down the landing place to within a 400 metre radius, but on rough ground it's proving difficult to find. They plan to continue the search next week.


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