Star Trek: Nichelle Nichols’ ashes will be sent into space

Nichelle Nichols, who played communications officer Lt. Nyota Uhura in Gene Roddenberry’s original 1966 Star Trek series, died in late July at the age of 89.

Celestis, a private spaceflight company that works with NASA, will include some of the franchise star’s ashes in a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket. The flight, titled Enterprise, is scheduled to take off later this year.

The journey will begin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and is expected to go beyond the James Webb Telescope and into interplanetary deep space.

Once its solar orbit is established, the Enterprise flight will be renamed Enterprise Station and will become, according to the company, the first footprint of humanity – with its DNA, data and memorial flights – to go beyond the Earth-Moon system. , deep in the cosmos.

Additionally, the station will serve as a beacon to the “others”: a representation of Earth, its customs and culture for any other life forms that may exist in our galaxy. The company says the rocket will therefore be the most remote permanent human depot outpost and a pathfinder for human exploration of space.

A PIONEER IN SPACE

An iconic figure in the Star Trek universe, Nichelle Nichols is celebrated for her groundbreaking portrayal of a Black female authority figure in a major television role – a milestone in small-screen history that came just two years ago. after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the United States.

After considering quitting the show because of the racism she suffered from NBC executives, the actress was encouraged to continue in her role as Uhura on the USS Enterprise by the rights leader civics, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself.

As part of the Enterprise flight, the ashes of the icon will be joined by a few other Star Trek names, James Montgomery Doohan (Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in the show) and Gene and Majel Roddenberry (the latter being the interpreter of the nurse Chapel in the original series and other roles in the saga). All four will have some of their cremated remains aboard the rocket alongside more than 100 other people.

And this isn’t the first time members of the Star Trek family have traveled to space posthumously. Gene Roddenberry’s ashes have already been sent on a number of Celestis missions, including one in 2014.

All 3 seasons of Star Trek, the original series, can be found on Netflix.

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