On this day in space! Oct. 22, 1992: Gene Roddenberry's ashes launch into space

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On Oct. 22, 1992, the space shuttle Columbia launched into space with the ashes of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek."

On Oct. 22, 1992, the space shuttle Columbia launched into space with the ashes of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek."

A photograph of Gene Roddenberry from 1961, used to advertise for Mutual of New York. (Image credit: Mutual of New York (MONY), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

But thanks to his wife, a little bit of Roddenberry finally made it to space almost exactly one year after his death. NASA and his family didn't tell anyone about it until almost two years later. Now, this historic moment has become famous for being the first ever "space burial."

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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