James Doohan's Ashes Beamed Back Down to New Mexico

A rocket payload that flew briefly into space with ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper and "Star Trek" actor James Doohan was recovered Friday in the New Mexico mountains.

The payload was found in its designated recovery zone 20 days after Farmington, Connecticut-based UP Aerospace sent it up in a 20-foot rocket on April 28.

The rocket, the first to be successfully launched into space from the fledgling Spaceport America in southern New Mexico, made a 4-minute suborbital flight before drifting back to Earth.

On board were partial ashes from Cooper, Doohan -- who played Scotty on "Star Trek" -- and 200 others, including John Meredith Lucas, a writer for the original "Star Trek" series.

The payload landed in rocky, steep terrain in the San Andres Mountains on White Sands Missile Range, east of the spaceport, and was found by a UP Aerospace crew with help from White Sands.

UP Aerospace co-founder Eric Knight said the payload "landed where we wanted it to be. It was just in difficult terrain."

"And some days, the weather was not cooperative," he said.

Wende Doohan, James Doohan's widow, said he "was in great company with Gordon and Meredith Lucas."

"He probably wished he could have stayed" in space, Doohan said in a telephone interview from her home in Renton, Washington.