One of my points in the story is what would happen if private space travel had the same safe flight rate as NASA's space shuttle program.  The shuttle has suffered two cataclysmic crashes in 123 flights despite NASA's spending $150 billion of our money. "If the 18,000 monthly aircraft departures from LAX suffered from the same 98.4% arrival rate experienced by the Shuttle, a staggering 288 airliners a month would crash."

Space travel is hazardous--even if you're already dead. The ashes of James Doohan (Scotty on Star Trek), fun-loving astronaut Gordon Cooper and 200 other people were destroyed last week, rather than achieving space orbit, when a SpaceX rocket crashed on takeoff. 
 
Doohan's son wrote, "While there are many complicated reasons why this is a disappointment, mine is simple: I'd like to finish saying goodbye. Every launch attempt is like reliving his funeral. There’s a lot of pomp and ceremony, and a retelling of his deeds in life. But at the end of these funerals, something goes awry, the body doesn't get buried, and you know you're going to have to come back to do it over again."

Click this link to check it out:

The Radio Dan Show: Space Funerals

"Audaciosamente indo onde nenhum homem jamais esteve".

Agora estou assistindo à série que deu origem ao filme. E por mais interessante que seja, não sei se é capaz de superar os filmes. Para mim, até hoje, nada que veio antes ou depois dos seis filmes de Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov e Scott será capaz de superá-los.
É bom ver Star Trek de volta aos cinemas. Pelo menos para um fã de 27 anos, é realmente excitante.
Para quem gosta, o site do filme é: http://www.startrekmovie.com/. Lá, é possível baixar wallpapers e ícones do novo filme, bem como assistir ao trailer.
Eu coloquei ele abaixo:

Os mais malucos (como eu) podem clicar aqui para ver a página de Star Trek no Wikipedia. Tem as naves da Frota Estelar (sim, são muitas!) e inúmeras outras informações e links.

"Live long... and prosper!"

Bless, Celestis statement reads in part "If the remains are not recovered from this launch, the company has backup supplies that it arranges when it acquires the remains". Ewww they are only beaming up a bit of Scotty ! I am hoping the 208 people aren't in one urn (devalues it on eBay).

Now here is a thought, how come no one was aware that an out of control spacecraft was going to crash somewhere on earth? I think the media should be more interested in the fact that I (along with many others) could have been killed by a B grade actor. And don't give me that crap about them knowing we were all safe, they have no clue where it crashed.

Scotty is slowly sinking to the bottom of the South Pacific in a fine grey cloud of ash.

[caption id="attachment_4448" align="aligncenter" width="490" caption="My God, It's Full of Stars!"][/caption]

Dignified and strange, in its own way, and somehow an almost-adequate substitute for the original plan, which was for the cremains of James Doohan, proud Vancouverite, former Canadian war hero, and the actor who played Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, to be shot into space in a private SpaceX spacecraft. Goddam dilithium crystals!

The Falcon 1 owned by Musk's private space exploration company, SpaceX, left the ground and stayed off it for 2 minutes and 20 seconds before second- and third-stage rockets failed to ignite. The whole thing, including Scotty's ashes, plunged back to earth.

Well, back to the Pacific Ocean anyway. But nothing, particularly not the fate of a legend, is simple, and it seems there had already been a couple of false starts and a frantic search leading up to the ultimate un-ternment. For a man who claimed (falsely, but amusingly) that he was kicked out of the Canadian Air Force for slaloming his plane between hydro poles on a bet, the rolling swells of the unfettered tropical ocean are indeed the Final Frontier.

: : : : : : : : : : :

If James "Scotty" Doohan from "Star Trek" was alive today, he wouldn't be happy with what just happened to his ashes.

Doohan's ashes, along with 200 other people's remains, were supposed to be released into space on Saturday night by a rocket also carrying three satellites -- but the rocket never made it into orbit. Where it exactly is, however, is a mystery. No one at the company could tell us what happened to the rocket. Skylab is that you??

Real-life astronaut and original Mercury 7 crew member Gordon Cooper's ashes also were lost during the botched mission.

Freddie Jones, thespian genius, plays a rogue Scottish psychiatrist (R.D. Laing?) with the worst accent on record (Star Trek's James Doohan would laugh at it) who has seemingly invented a new form of therapy, based largely on burling the patient about in a swivel chair. The treatment relies on centrifugal force to bring hidden traumas out from the depths of the brain, where they lurk and fester, to the surface, where they can be drawn out through the skull by vigorous scalp massage.

THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF contains possibly Freddie Jones' worst performance and possibly Roger Moore's best performance. In a sad irony of fate, Jones' performance is nevertheless BETTER than Moore's performance. But it should be said: Moore is touching in some scenes and convincing in some scenes, and sometimes both at once. He does actually raise one eyebrow at a climactic moment, something he was ruthlessly parodied for doing on puppet sketch show Spitting Image: the Moore puppet would hoist one brow upwards, accompanied by the sound of a squeaking pulley, as if unseen stagehands were effecting this miracle of showmanship.

It's unlikely that THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF ever really frightened anybody, but apparently the trailer did. Director Basil Dearden had a long but slightly unsatisfied career directing all kinds of material, but every now and then he would evince an astonishing talent for what Michael Powell would call The Composed Film, and Hitchcock christened Pure Cinema. The climax of DEAD OF NIGHT, where all the stories in the compendium crash together in a surreal nightmare mash-up, and the carnival scene of SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS both show this talent in full flow. Well, the climax of THE MAN WHO... is a bit like that, but not quite as good. Much of it can be seen in the trailer, including the glowing tinted lights and the astrological pool table. Heady stuff, I imagine, if you saw this trailer as a kid, and many did.

Those were the days when kids going to see Disney cartoons could be subjected to trailers for any old filth. I already blogged about my childhood encounter with GOODBYE EMMANUELLE, and my friend Robert's viewing of trailers for TOMMY and  SHIVERS while on an innocuous visit to BAMBI? He didn't venture back into a cinema for ten years.

The truly spooky thing about THE MAN WHO... is its onscreen-offscreen synchronicity. In the movie, Roger Moore survives a nasty car crash only to be persecuted by a malevolent doppelganger (also played, in an unforgiveable casting error, by Roger Moore. Two Moores is one-and-a-half Moores more than any decent film can sustain). In reality, Basil Dearden was killed on a stretch of road close to the film's accident site, shortly after finishing it. While not quite as resonant as the tragic demise of F.W. Murnau, this incident does add a certain frisson of interest to Dearden's final film.

After the war, James Doohan started his acting career. Disheartened by the laughable quality of a radio drama, he privately studied Shakespeare. James Doohan's work began with a CBC radio show appearance on January 12, 1946. James Doohan took a drama class in Toronto, and later won a two-year scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where his classmates included Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone. For several years James Doohan would shuttle between Toronto and New York as work demanded. During this period he appeared on some 4000 radio programs and 400 television programs, and earned a reputation for his versatility. In the mid-1950s he appeared as forest ranger Timber Tom (the northern counterpart of Buffalo Bob) in the Canadian version of Howdy Doody. Coincidentally, fellow Canadian and Star Trek cast member William Shatner appeared simultaneously as Ranger Bill in the American version. James Doohan and Shatner also appeared on the 1950s Canadian science fiction series Space Command.

James Doohan played the lead role in the CBC TV drama production "Flight into Danger", based on Arthur Hailey's novel Runway Zero-Eight, later adapted as Terror in the Sky and spoofed in Airplane!. James Doohan's credits also included The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Bewitched, Fantasy Island, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and Bonanza. In the Bonanza episode, "Gift of Water" (1962), he co-starred with actress Majel Barrett who would later be cast in the role of Star Trek's Nurse Chapel. James Doohan appeared as an assistant to the President of the United States in 2 episodes of Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea.

James Doohan was an Actor best known for his role as Scotty on the TV series Star Trek. James Doohan is known almost exclusively for playing chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott on the 1960s TV series Star Trek and the movies, cartoons and parodies which followed. James is the Scotty in the phrase "Beam me up, Scotty," made popular by the original series. (Ironically, the exact phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" was never spoken in the series, though many variations on it were.)James Doohan was back in the news in May of 2000 when his 2nd wife gave birth to their 3rd child, making him a father at age 80.

After his death in 2005, a small portion of James Doohan's ashes were set aside to be blasted into space aboard a commercial rocket. Launched on 29 April 2007, the rocket had a brief sub-orbital flight before crashing in the San Andres Mountains in New Mexico.

James Doohan married his 2nd wife, Wendey, in 1975, when James Doohan was 55 and she was 19. The couple had 3 children; James Doohan also had 4 children from a previous marriage... James Doohan suffered from diabetes and Parkinson's disease in his last years. In July of 2004, his family announced that James Doohan also had been diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer's disease; the next month a Star Trek convention was thrown in his honour, titled "Beam Me Up, Scotty...One Last Time."

Outside of his performances in Star Trek and other television shows and films, James Doohan was also a wounded combat veteran of World War II. Following his success with Star Trek, he supplemented his income and showed continued support for his fans by making numerous public appearances. James Doohan often went to great lengths to buoy the large number of fans who have been inspired to make their own accomplishments in engineering and other fields, as a result of James Doohan's work and his encouragement. James Doohan was considered by some to be one of the most giving and affordable stars of the Star Trek franchise.

Keep visiting: www.lifechums.com more Celebrities featuring Shortly .............

Yeah...sorry. See, the only reason we watched this terrible, terrible movie was that it had not one, but two original Star Trek cast members: George Takei (Sulu) and James Doohan (Scotty). Takei, playing a near-senile Japanese entomologist, apparently was only available for a few hours of shooting, because all of his scenes take place in the same lab and without any other characters; the only interaction he has with anyone else in the movie is though a couple of phone calls. Doohan, on the other hand, has a moderate amount of screen time as Carlson, the sheriff of a small lakeside town. Whether drunk, sleepy, or suffering from early Alzheimer's (which would later contribute to his death in 2005), Doohan stumbles through every scene he's in, slurring his lines and often looking bored.

Here's a run-down of the plot. Shannon (Katherine Heigl) and her parents (Anne Lockhart and Bernie Koppel) buy a hotel in the aforementioned small lakeside town. We learn that Shannon is afraid of bugs through a series of identical dream sequences (really -- they just use the same footage three times) in which she is scantily clad and covered by large cockroaches. Strangely, while these are ostensibly nightmares, Shannon seems to rather enjoy the bugs' crawling all over her naked flesh, arching her back erotically as the cockroaches crawl slowly up her thighs.

Right as they arrive in town, a local girl gets bitten by something while skinny-dipping in the lake, and Sheriff Carlson immediately closes off access to the lake. When it's suggested that such an action might be a little hasty, he retorts, "You saw Jaws, didn't you?" Naturally, nobody can argue with that logic, and the lake is shut down while the police investigate on a patrol boat. In one of the best scenes in the movie, a deputy falls in the lake and starts thrashing about, screaming that something is attacking him. The sheriff, of course, heroically shoots the fish with his handgun. Amazing. He then takes the fish to Laura, the town vet (and, apparently, the town forensic pathologist), and she finds a large cockroach in its stomach.

This strikes her as a bit odd, so she calls up Fujimoto (Takei), her old professor. ("Ah yes," he says with a lecherous smile, "I remember. Pretty blonde.") Fujimoto has to explain to Laura that "Blatella" is the Latin term for cockroaches, which makes a person wonder how on earth she passed his entomology class. No matter. Fujimoto plays with some terrible computer graphics of various insects, puts a cockroach in a tub of water, and fiddles with some scientific gadgets before ultimately meeting his fate. (It doesn't really make sense. Let's not worry about that part too much.)

Meanwhile, cockroaches are turning up in corpses all over town. The sax player for a band called "Trailer Park Trash" falls over dead in the middle of his set, a single cockroach crawling out of his beard. Two bodies are found in a movie theater, their flesh eaten away by...centipedes, or so we're led to believe. We're treated to multiple shots of things crawling out of the lake at night, which could be centipedes but really look more like poorly animated straight lines.

Eventually, the girl who'd been bitten in the lake turns up again with some festering sores on her leg, which break open as cockroaches spill out of her body. All of this madness finally leads the vet/doctor/forensics expert to muse, "I can't help wondering if there's any connection between the roach I found in the fish and the ones I found in the humans." By then, of course, it's too late; roaches are everywhere, and the town is quarantined. Shannon's parents, while having some questionably enjoyable sex (noises heard from the room: "Oh! Oh! Wait, no....oh! Stop that!"), are apparently swarmed and eaten by bugs. (We only see their flesh-stripped corpses the next morning.) Things are not going well for our heroes.

The savior of this movie, both within the story narrative and for the viewers, is General George (Randy Quaid), an insane Vietnam-vet-turned-exterminator. Throughout the first three-quarters of the movie, we periodically see the general's low-budget TV ads, in which he hacks a snake with a machete, uses a flamethrower on some spiders, and shoots a rat with a gun. The "pest eliminator" assures us that he "kicks bug ass," and indeed, he is brought in at the end of the movie to deal with the mutant roaches.

Some quotes from the General:

"When General George opens up his can of whup-ass, there'll be roaches in Siberia feeling the heat..."

"They [the roaches] appear to be amphibious...that means they can live in water and on dry land."

In a mine shaft toward the end of the movie: "It's a vampire bat: it's bite's deadlier than a king cobra...kill you like that..."

Truly, General George is a mind to be reckoned with.

We learn that there's some sort of link between the giant bugs and some insecticides sprayed on the town a decade earlier. The sheriff turns out to be the bad guy, as he's been in cahoots with the bugs the whole time, protecting their nest and their giant bug mama in order to drive property prices down so low that he can buy up the whole town. He shoots the love interest; giant bug mama slices his throat; General George blows up the whole mine and toasts the bug. Phew.

In summary, we get to see James Doohan shoot a fish and Randy Quaid fist-fight a giant insect puppet, which is pretty much worth the price of admission. Or at least the 99 cents I paid for this movie at the video store closeout sale.

Directed by William Shatner

Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols

I'm a trekkie.

There I said it. But this film questioned my faith in the franchise, almost as much as Insurrection, but at least 9 had some decent effects. After watching this film in the theater, I immediately repressed it from my memory, and there it lay in dormancy, until today. Today, I dug up the smelly bloated corpse of a memory that remained of this film, dusted it off, and realized, maybe some things should just stay buried.

STV was the culimnation of Shatner's bruised ego getting him a feature film directorial debut in the wake of Nimoy's success on III and IV. While the inital screenplay was supposed to have a much darker tone according to Shatner, Paramount demanded the injection of shitty shitty humor to mimic The Voyage Home's box-office appeal. In the framework of this film though, most of the jokes come at the expense of the ancillary characters and completely bomb when they involve the main cast.  Unless you consider the farcical scene where Kirk free climbs El Capitan, that was funny...but I wasn't laughing with them.

The plot is weak and contrived, a hijacked Enterprise sent to the center of universe to save God, the acting is tired and forced, and the effects were shotty. Usually done by ILM who was busy with Indy 3, the special effects were passed off to a smaller house who did a substandard job, removing the last possible reason for rewatching this movie.  Interesting to note, the budget had to exclude a scene where Kirk fights a giant rock monster, which later got inserted into the excellent satire movie Galaxy Quest.

Having intially repressed the memory of this film, I was channel surfing one day and came across V playing on cable and stopped to watch a scene where a middle-aged, out of shape Uhura does a dance of seduction and woos a crowd of men, topping it off with a shitty joke. Then I went back to Divorce Court.

Thankfully, Shatner's director legacy did not live long and prosper and Nicholas Meyer, scribe for the famous even movies (2, 4, and 6), came back to breath decency back into the series on the next one. It's best you just warp by this one.

A parlare stavolta è Simon Pegg, che avrà il grande onore di prestare mascella e accento a Scotty. "Sta venendo alla grande. Io ho completato le mie scene ma dovrò tornare alle riprese fra un paio di settimane per alcune aggiunte. Comunque, se guardo ciò che ho fatto, devo dire che è fantastico."

Riguardo al suo personaggio e all'inevitabile confronto con il leggendario James Doohan, Pegg, con i capelli ancora tinti per ricordare Scotty, ha dichiarato: "Tutto ciò che ho fatto è stato rendere un tributo a James Doohan e al suo personaggio. E' stato un onore potermi calare in questo ruolo, e ne sono molto orgoglioso." Bocca cucita anche sui particolari come l'accento scozzese: "Davvero, non posso dirle che tipo di Scotty sarà perché se lo faccio mi trascinano in tribunale. Posso dire che, essendo mia moglie scozzese, le ho rubato allegramente l'accento e l'ho trasferito nel personaggio. Spero che sia venuto bene." E riguardo all'emozione di essere un fan trekkiano alle prese con i suoi sogni: "Essere a bordo dell'Enterprise è stato incredibile. Tutti ameranno questo film."

[Fonte: Fantascienza.com]

OTTAWA, Canadá, 9 Mar 2008 (AFP) - A pequena cidade de Vulcan, escondida entre pastos e campos de trigo do oeste do Canadá, pediu aos estúdios da Paramount que seja escolhida para realizar a première do novo filme para cinema da saga de ficção científica Star Trek, com estréia marcada para maio de 2009.

O filme, que tem o título provisório de "Star Trek Zero", é o 11o. feito para cinema e sua história girará em torno das aventuras da juventude do capitão James T. Kirk, do vulcano sr. Spock e demais tripulantes da nave Enterprise, que ganharam fama mundial através do seriado de TV criado nos anos 60 por Gene Roddenberry.

A porta-voz da prefeitura de Vulcan, Dayna Dickens, informou ter enviado a proposta ao produtores executivos do filme, que responderam dizendo que "estão considerando a idéia".

"Já que a trama se passa com os jovens sr. Spock e capitão Kirk nos tempos de Academia da Frota Estelar, e porque pensamos no sr. Spock como um nativo de nossa terra, seria ótimo trazê-lo para casa para o lançamento do filme", explicou. "Afinal, Vulcan é seu lugar de nascimento".

Todos os anos a cidade recebe por três dias uma convenção de Star Trek que reúne milhares de fãs das séries e dos filmes.

Os trekkers, como são chamados os fãs, dão de cara com uma enorme nave estelar Classe Constitution logo na entrada da cidade e as lojas locais vendem todos os objetos pertencentes ao imaginário do universo trekiniano.

Ao contrário da crença popular, a cidade não foi batizada com o nome do planeta natal do sr. Spock, mas em função do deus da mitologia grega Vulcano, 56 anos antes do primeiro episódio de Star Trek ir ao ar. Em 1993 a prefeitura resolveu capitalizar a fama da série para promover o turismo local.

O novo filme de Star Trek será escrito e dirigido por J.J. Abrams, da série "Alias-Codinome Perigo" e "Lost", e será estrelado por Chris Pine como Kirk e Zachary Quinto (o vilão de "Heroes") como o lógico sr. Spock.

Ele é também o personagem de Star Trek favorito de Tim Kring, e por causa disso, Doohan (ou o que resta de suas cinzas) terá um papel no Volume 3: Villains de Heroes.

"Tivemos Nichelle (Nana, em Heroes e Uhuru, em Star Trek) e George (Kaito, em Heroes e Sulu, em Star Trek) aparecendo nos volumes anteriores, mas meu favorito sempre foi Scotty," disse Kring. "Quando eu soube que alguns dos seus restos mortais estavam ainda disponíveis, soube também que tinha que escrever para ele na série."

Não fiquem inquietos por isso, fãs de Star Trek. Tim Kring assegura a todos que eles não farão qualquer coisa que desonre a memória de Doohan. Mas ele também não está revelando qual papel exatamente as cinzas de Doohan terão.

(Fonte: SuperheroProfiles, traduzido por mim.)

- postado por Isabela

I also ordered a few things from Creation Entertainment. They're currently running a 10% + free domestic shipping sale. (I wish I had the cash to pick up a few more things. :oops: )

Truly a visual feast, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan works as both a science fiction adventure story and as a thematically rich drama. Director Nicholas Meyer maintains a masterful grip on the proceedings. He handles action, suspense, and tragedy with equal assurance. Star Trek has never been so alive as it is here: Gene Roddenberry's vision has never been so clear, so gripping, so mind blowing.

On Saturday, April 29th James Doohan's remains along with those of 200 others were successfully launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico.  The 20-foot rocket flew 70 miles to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere before returning to earth.  During the return, however, the rocket blew off course and has been missing until Friday when it was found in the New Mexico mountains.

James Doohan is best know for his role as Scotty, the fiesty engineer in the Star Treck TV series and movies.  

When I reported, Doohan's launch into space I was under the impression this send off was permanent.  But the fact that it was sub-orbital should have been my first clue.

Families members paid nearly $500 for the deceased relatives short-lived trip to space.  Not that I know it's not a permanent ride, I think the fare is little expensive for my taste.  But at least Doohan and the others got what they wanted.

Doohan's wife, Wende, and Susan Cooper, widow of Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, were on hand to help fire the 20-foot rocket.  In addition to carrying the remains of more than 200, the rocket also included a CD with notes and well wishes from more than 11,000 of Doohan's fans.

Doohan, who passed away in 2005, will be making his final journey into space on April 28 in rocket with the remains of more than 200 others. 

I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Doohan once.  Both the man and the character will be sorely missed.

Seems only appropriate that Scotty be "beamed up" this one final time.  May he rest in peace.