Wednesday

Something I neglected to mention yesterday: I don't know if you've ever seen this, but between this Update Column and my blog roll of links below, I have a sporadically-updated link or two devoted to strange things I've come across on the web. This is an homage to Frank's more successfully-updated "Bizzaro Link of the Moment" offering on his MySpace page. Up until now, these items have languished without comment. But something I linked along the way, a service that will fire human cremated remains into space, has made the news. Want a unique and expensive send off? Shoot your urn into orbit and beyond, just as Celestis Memorial Spaceflights is planning to do with the remains of astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, who died October 4, 2004, and actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on the original Star Trek series and died July 20th of last year. This is really New Mexican news, sure, but Tuesday UP Aerospace, the first privately-sponsored commercial space program in the US to attempt a space shot, suffered a blow when its maiden mission encountered a problem at forty thousand feet above Spaceport America: the SpaceLoft XL rocket began to wobble in a corkscrewy fashion and enthusiasts watched it plummet into the desert. The payload included several local high school research projects (running digital and analog watches to measure, maybe, the effect of momentary weightlessness on those things), and, yes, some dead folks with first-class tickets into near orbit.* The crash site six miles from any road in the New Mexican desert, and it might be some time before salvagers can hike in and recover what little is likely to remain. Have no fear, Mr. Doohan's and Gordo's ashes are ticketed to depart on the company's second launch, still slated for October 21st. [Cavin]