Who Is The First Person Buried In Space?

On April 21, 1997, Roddenberry's ashes were transported to the Canary Islands and loaded onto the Pegasus-XL for the first public memorial spaceflight. Numerous people, including celebrities and space enthusiasts, followed the event. His ashes were subsequently launched from the rocket and orbited the Earth until May 2002 when they re-entered the atmosphere.

Prior to the Pegasus launch, astronaut James Weatherbee had taken a small portion of Roddenberry's ashes aboard the space shuttle Columbia.



In a later mission, a portion of Roddenberry's ashes, along with those of his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, were sent into deep space. This marked the first successful deep space mission. Roddenberry was not the only Star Trek personality to have their ashes sent into space. James Doohan's ashes were also launched and returned to Earth on April 28, 2007. Additional attempts were made in the following year but were unsuccessful in reaching orbit. However, a third batch of ashes was successfully launched in 2012 aboard the Falcon 9, where it remained in orbit for approximately one month before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

How were people buried in Space in 1997