Transporter confinement beam fails – Scotty’s molecules scattered over wide area

On July 20, 2005, the actor James Doohan passed away at age 85. Mr. Doohan is well-known for his portrayal of the chief engineer, Scotty, on the Enterprise, a starship traversing the universe in the television and movie Star Trek franchise.
    
In 2007, some of Mr. Doohan’s cremains were sent into space but the rocket ship did not make it into orbit and crashed back to earth.  Several weeks later, they were found in New Mexico.  See Scotty’s space-flight ashes found, BBC News, May 18, 2007.

On Saturday, August 2, 2008, another attempt was made to “beam up” Scotty.  Unfortunately, after about two minutes of flight, an anomaly (space euphemism for “blowing up”) occurred and Scotty’s ashes were scattered everywhere.
   

Here are some additional details from John Schwartz, Launch of Private Rocket Fails; Three Satellites Were Onboard, New York Times, August 3, 2008:
   

Elon Musk, an Internet entrepreneur, founded the company, known as SpaceX, in 2002 after selling his online payment company, PayPal, to eBay for $1.5 billion. The company, based in Hawthorne, Calif., has been hailed as one of the most promising examples of an entrepreneurial “new space” movement, and has 525 employees.
   

* * * Mr. Musk said, “It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit” on the flight. He referred to the first stage of the launching as “picture perfect,” but said, “unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation.”
   
The rocket was launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific at 11:34 p.m. Eastern time, after several hours of delays and one aborted launch attempt.
   

The first Falcon 1 launch, in March 2006, failed about a minute into its ascent because of a fuel line leak. A second rocket, launched in March 2007, made it to space but was lost about five minutes after launching. * * *
   

The rocket was also carrying the ashes of 208 people who had paid to have their remains shot into space, including the astronaut Gordon Cooper and the actor James Doohan * * *. The service is called an “Explorers Flight” by the company that arranges them, Celestis, Inc.
   

Special thanks to Sara Hudman (J.D. 2008, Texas Tech University School of Law) for bringing this development to my attention.