Star Trek Actress' Ashes Will Be Launched Into Space

pcmag.com:

The late actress Nichelle Nichols, best known for her portrayal of Nyota Uhura in the 1960s Star Trek series, will become the latest member of the U.S.S. Enterprise to visit space.

Nichols, who passed away last month at the age of 89, broke new ground for Black women on American television when she appeared from 1966 to 1969 as Uhura—a role she later reprised in the first six Star Trek feature films.

Now she's one of more than 200 posthumous "passengers" set to board the Vulcan Centaur rocket under development by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing/Lockheed Martin joint venture.

The memorial mission is organized by Texas-based Celestis Inc., which offers what Reuters calls(Opens in a new window) "a measure of cosmic immortality" by teaming with private rocket ventures to send customers on an "eternal voyage" into deep space (starting at $12,500(Opens in a new window)).

Nichols' ashes will join the human cremains and DNA samples of "dozens of departed space enthusiasts"—including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's wife, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who played nurse Christine Chapel on the series and died in 2008, and sci-fi visual effects artist Douglas Trumball, who passed in February after working on classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

"It's a wonderful memorial for her, an eternal one," Nichols' son Kyle Johnson told Reuters.

Nichols never strayed far from the idea of exploring the universe: A decade after Star Trek ended, she worked with NASA to enroll women and ethnic minorities in the space program. Nichols helped recruit Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut; Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut; as well as Judith Resnik