KEY POINTS:
LOS ANGELES - They beamed him up -- and today, after a three-week search, they found the rocket that had carried ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan briefly into space.
The remains of Doohan, whose Star Trek character Scotty inspired the television catch phrase Beam me up, Scotty, were blasted off to the edge of space from New Mexico on April 29, two years after his death at the age of 85.
The payload also included ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper, who first went into space in 1963, and another 200 people.
But the UP Aerospace Spaceloft XL rocket carrying the capsules with the ashes back to Earth got lost in rugged terrain and the search for it was hampered by bad weather.
"Now we can all say 'mission accomplished'," Rick Homans, executive director of New Mexico's Spaceport Authority, said on Friday.
Organisers said the rocket and the individual capsules containing the ashes were in good condition and would be mounted on plaques and returned to the families.
Canadian-born Doohan played the starship Enterprise's chief engineer Montgomery Scott in the original 1966-1969 Star Trek television series.
Houston-based Space Services Inc charges US$495 ($686.45) to send a portion of a person's ashes into suborbital space and return it to Earth.
- REUTERS
