Call it Star Trek 11: The Hunt for Scotty's Remains.
A rocket that blasted into suborbital space two weeks ago from a remote area in New Mexico containing ashes of late Star Trek star James Doohan has fallen back to Earth and landed in a mountainous region of the state that's made it difficult to recover, according to a spokeswoman for the company that organized the launch.
Houston-based Space Services, which specializes in "memorial flights" for those wanting to send their cremated remains or those of a loved one to the final frontier, confirmed that the capsule that was launched on Apr. 28 did indeed reach its altitude goal of 72.7 miles above Earth—the point where the atmosphere ends and space begins.
However, after descending by parachute, the 20-foot module came to rest on a rocky hillside in some extremely thick vegetation, posing a problem for searchers despite containing four homing beacons transmitting its location.
"It's not like Mr. Doohan's lost," company rep Susan Schonfeld told E! Online. "The rocket did hit its landing target, but it's in a very mountainous and rugged terrain. [The recovery team] can't get to it by foot or by vehicle. They have to take a helicopter up there."
Making things worse, the desert region has been hit with "horrendous" weather lately, including torrential downpours, according to Schonfeld.
"They know the general location, and we have twentysomething days to recover the rocket," she said.
Along with a portion of Doohan's ashes, the payload carried the remains of some 200 other people, including one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, L. Gordon Cooper, along with various experiments.
The Canadian-born Doohan, of course, was famous for playing Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, the diligent engineer and miracle worker aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise on the 1966-69 original classic TV series and seven Trek films, beaming Captain Kirk and crew all over the universe. He died in 2005 at the age of 85 after battling pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease.
Space Services offers three different types of memorial space missions—an Earth Rise Service, which is the flight Doohan's family chose, costs about $495 and launches a symbolic portion of one's ashes to a zero-gravity environment. The module returns to earth where the sealed remains are recovered and given back to the family.
Other trips include Earth Orbit Surface, which puts the remains into orbit; Luna Service, which does the same but in lunar orbit; or Voyager Service, the first mission of which doesn't launch until 2009 but boldly aims to send ashes into deep space.
The same company rocketed Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's remains into space back in 1997. And plans are underway to blast more ashes of Doohan and Cooper back into space in October, this time aboard an orbital craft.