The phrase “Beam me up, Scotty“, is a part of the American venacular.

Oddly enough, like many such phrases (e.g., “Play it again, Sam“), it was never actually spoken in the show.

But it doesn’t matter. It is the phrase many of us remember whenever we see a photo of the actor, James Doohan, who played the starship Enterprise’s chief engineer Scotty.

James Doohan died two years ago. Yesterday, Doohan finally made a brief sojourn into space. A spacecraft, containing a capsule of his remains, remains of Gordon Cooper, who first went into space in 1963 and died in 2004, and capsules of about 200 other people road a rocket to an altitude of 72 miles, the edge of space.

After the trip, the rocket returns to earth via parachute, the capsules are retrieved, mounted on plaques and given back to relatives.

The flight was arranged by Houston-based company Space Services Inc. The company charges $495 to send a portion of a person’s ashes into suborbital space and return it.

Wikipedia reports this story about Doohan:

In the 1997 documentary Trekkies, Doohan related a very somber story: a female fan sent him a suicide note. Doohan immediately contacted the fan and arranged to speak with her at his next convention appearance. Doohan continued to see her at several other conventions, but ultimately didn’t hear from her for several months, which quickly became years.

Doohan, visibly moved by relating this tale, then revealed the reason for the eight-year-long silence: one final letter arrived, thanking Doohan for his kindness and comforting words, and informing him that because of his encouragement, she had gone back to school and earned a degree in Electronic Engineering.

As Scotty once said in Star Trek: “I’ve giv’n her all she’s got, Captain, an’ I canna give her no more.”

Bye (again), Scotty. We miss you.