Nichelle Nichols, best known as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, will become the latest member of the 1960s television series to be memorialised by having some of her earthly remains flown into space.
Nichols, who died on July 30 at 89, is credited with helping shatter racial stereotypes and redefining Hollywood roles for black actors as one of the first black women to portray an empowered character on US network television.
She has been added to the posthumous passenger manifest of a rocketship due to carry a collection of vials containing cremated ashes and DNA samples from dozens of departed space enthusiasts on a final and eternal voyage around the sun, according to organisers of the tribute.
A date for the launch has not been set.
Other Star Trek cast members and executives who have had remains launched into space include James Doohan, who played the show’s chief engineer Scotty, and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberrry.
Also joining the launch will be the remains of Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who played nurse Christine Chapel on the series, and sci-fi visual effects artist Douglas Trumbull, whose work was featured in such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
The launch is organised by Celestis Inc, a Texas-based company that offers a measure of cosmic immortality to customers who can afford it.
The flight will be aboard a Vulcan Centaur rocket, still under development by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Plans call for the 200-plus vials to go inside the upper rocket stage that will fly on into deep space and enter a perpetual solar orbit.
“It’s a wonderful memorial for her, an eternal one,” Nichols’ son Kyle Johnson said.
-AAP
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