Beam Scotty up my friend...

The remains of late Star Trek actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on the show, are to be blasted into space accompanied by thousands of tributes from adoring fans.

The actor, who transported the crew of the Enterprise to and from the starship on the now immortalised command, "Beam me up, Scotty", is to go where only a few men have ever gone when his ashes are launched in orbit in December.

Doohan, who died in July at the age of 85, had asked that his ashes be launched into the final frontier following his demise.

But Space Services, a Texas-based company that rocketed the remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 1960s drug guru Timothy Leary into the firmament, said Doohan would be accompanied by thousands of fan letters.

The messages to the immensely popular star will be digitised and put onto a disc that will be put in the rocket's payload and accompany his remains into space, the company said.

Doohan's ashes will be fired into orbit from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on December 6 aboard Space Services' Falcon I rocket. A memorial service will be held at Vandenberg, north of Los Angeles, the day before.

Canadian-born Doohan played engineer Montgomery Scott in the original 1960s Star Trek television series that has spawned a decades-long cult following of the show.

The Great Assembly part 3

Captain’s log stardate 20332.4.1.

After two days of waiting, the registration department finally forwarded me the list of potential crew members. Frankly speaking, I am not keen on the candidates extracted from the Unemployed Graduate Database.

It is difficult for me to comply with Admiral Abu’s request to reflect “the harmony of our society” without compromising the safety of the whole crew by having unqualified staff. However, space faring is not a simple matter, I have decided keep the “harmony” my way, for my top notch officers I don’t really care if they are Caucasian white, Sulliban green or Andorian blue. I will fill up the “quota” with the non-commissioned crewmen. Just cross my fingers and pray that they don’t visit the mess hall to have tea every 3 hours. Perhaps I should ask the chef not to program the dispenser to serve teh tarik.

Although we are not the first to venture into deep space, this will be the very first time under our own flag. No one understands the Xinjiang er… sorry KDA Mahathir like the people who built & used them. Hence we've been assigned 2Lt Daibao, a PLAAF maintenance engineer currently attached to Jiuquan spacedock. She will be joining us when we collect Mahathir there.

For my science officer, I need someone with interplanetary experience. However, we were deemed too primitive by Vulcan because we are still adhering to the Everything-shall-reflect-the-social-harmony policy. Well, what can I do? Our Prime Minister said that he is not going to make everyone colour blind. For this post, I have no choice but to get Cdr Telev though he has two little antennas on his head and he is blue, fluorescent blue. He will make a fine science officer.

Holding the helm will be SLt Takizo, half Malaysian half Vulcan, he is the only Malaysian I know who will never get a kopi license to fly a spaceship.

I would like to get Lt Mutu as the comm officer, he is the guy who can really talk cock and able to twist his tongue in any way you can think of.

For tactical and security, I will take LtCdr Adnan, he is a veteran trainer for our National Service program.

We'll asemble the crew & head out to Jiuquan in the next few days to take possession of our starship. Ali out.