On this day in space! Oct. 22, 1992: Ashes of ‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry launch into space on NASA shuttle

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On Oct. 22, 1992, the space shuttle Columbia launched into space with the ashes of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of “Star Trek,” aboard.

During mission STS-52, NASA astronaut and shuttle commander James Wetherbee brought a small container with a portion of Roddenberry’s ashes into space as part of his personal effects at the request of Roddenberry’s widow, Majel Barrett. It was Roddenberry’s lifelong dream to go to space, but he never got to go while he was alive.

But thanks to his wife, a little bit of Roddenberry finally made it to space almost exactly one year after his death. NASA and his family didn’t tell anyone about it until almost two years later in 1994.

Wetherbee said he was “honored to be asked” by Barrett to carry Roddenberry’s ashses on the spaceflight. “I’m just glad I was able to bring a little happiness to the family,” he said, according to Newsweek.

The Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-52) launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 22, 1992. — The Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-52) launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 22, 1992. (Image credit: NASA)

Here’s why it mattered

The launch of Roddenberry’s ashes into space on NASA’s STS-52 mission aboard the space shuttle Columbia marked the world’s first “space burial,” but it wouldn’t be the last.

About five years after Roddenberry’s memorial flight, in 1997, the space memorial company Celestis began launching a series of “burial” flights by flying capsules with human cremains on rockets . In fact, more of Roddenberry’s ashes flew on Celestis’ “founders flight” in April 1997 aboard an air-launched Pegasus rocket that took off from the Canary Islands in Spain. The ashes of Roddenberry’s wife and of Star Trek actor James Doohan have also flown in space, among others.

Celestis has gone on to launch human cremains on many suborbital and orbital flights, including some on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. The company even launched the ashes of the late astronomer Eugene Shoemaker to the moon in 1999 on the Luna 1 flight, with another set of cremains launched into deep space on the Enterprise mission in 2023.