Rusty wrote:
Farmington-made rocket set to launch remains

By Abram Katz, Journal Register News Service
08/15/2006

http://www.bristolpress.com/site/new...= 10486&rfi=6

A few grams of an astronaut and an actor who played one on television
will get a brief taste of space this fall atop a Connecticut
company's solid-fuel rocket.

Gordon Cooper, who logged 222 hours in NASA's Mercury and Gemini
spacecraft, and James Doohan, chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
of the Star Trek starship Enterprise -- a bit of what's left of them,
at least -- will inaugurate a new memorial flight service conducted
jointly by UP Aerospace Inc. of Farmington and Celestis Inc. of
Houston.

The flight, which will include the cremated remains of 118 additional
people, is scheduled for October.

Celestis, a division of Space Services, promises "a step into the
universe" for the deceased. The departed will lift off from the
"Spaceport America" south of Albuquerque.

However, the small capsules of ash will spend only around five minutes
about 140 miles above Earth before descending from the heavens on
parachutes for a soft landing 30 miles away on the White Sands Missile
Range...

_Sub_orbital?

Not to be too blunt about it, but just what _would_ be the ****ing point
of that?

That sounds positively depressing, a bit like flushing a dead goldfish
and having the pipes back up a bit and seeing the fish re-emerge from
the bottom of the toilet.


--

..

"Though I could not caution all, I yet may warn a few:
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools!"

--grateful dead.
__________________________________________________ _____________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
"Mikey'zine": dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org