It has now been revealed that Richard “Lord British” Garriott (Ultima, Shroud of the Avatar) smuggled the ashes of actor James Doohan into the International Space Station ISS in 2008 in a secret operation. Authorities had prohibited Doohan’s family from doing so. Doohan became known as “Scotty” from Star Trek.
This is the background: Actor James Doohan became famous as Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in “Star Trek: The Original Series.” “Scotty, beam me up” became a catchphrase.
The actor passed away in 2005 at the age of 85. His last wish was for his ashes to be taken to the International Space Station ISS.
However, the authorities rejected the family’s request.
In 2008, there was an attempt to send some of Doohan’s ashes to the ISS on a flight of the “SpaceX Falcon 1.” However, the rocket did not reach its destination.
Initially, it was thought that Doohan’s wish remained unfulfilled.
Garriott allegedly booked a ticket to the ISS for 30 million
This is what we know now: As the legendary MMO developer Richard Garriott revealed, he smuggled part of James Doohan’s ashes onto the ISS as early as 2008. Garriott allegedly purchased a ticket for a space flight for about 30 million US dollars in 2008, completed a 12-day mission, and became one of the first “space tourists.”
He says he placed some of Doohan’s ashes and a laminated photo under the floor of the Columbus module and did not tell anyone about it. Only his family and he knew that Doohan’s ashes were on board the ISS.
The London Times released a video showing Garriott on the ISS recording a message to Doohan’s son, saying “Mission accomplished.”
Today, Garriott states:
“That was totally secret. His family was very happy that the ashes made it up there, but we were all disappointed that we couldn’t talk about it publicly for so long. Now enough time has passed, and we can talk about it.”
As reported by the London Times, Doohan’s ashes have now flown around the Earth 70,000 times, covering billions of kilometers in space.
Doohan’s son thanked Garriott for being able to smuggle the ashes onto the ISS: “What he did was so touching – it meant so much to me, it meant so much to my family, and it would have meant so much to my father.”
Who is Richard Garriott? Garriott (59) is one of the most important and well-known game designers ever: The role-playing series “Ultima” (since 1981) is considered legendary and influential. As “Lord British,” he wrote himself into the games as a character.
With Ultima Online (1997), Garriott was involved in one of the games that were among the first MMOs to achieve mainstream success. In recent years, he developed the controversial MMORPG “Shroud of the Avatar.” There, high prices for microtransactions have repeatedly made headlines.
It is not entirely clear what the first “real” MMO was and where the line is drawn. Ultima Online is definitely considered a significant milestone in the development of Massively Multiplayer Online Games:
