Behold the recent indignity to Jimmy Doohan, his ashes lost not once but twice by a race to place an important payload on immature rockets. Two elements of the story assuage the needless loss. First, that his remains accompanied astronaut Gordon Cooper and several hundred others so there's no indecent ridicule associated individually. Second, there's a wicked irony at work when Scotty himself is available but unable to fix an engine seeking to propel his memory to the undiscovered country.

It's nice to think he would laugh about it and toast the attempt, for it's a sad fact of rocket development that rockets fail. So I'm not damning the attempt, only the overconfidence that opted to trust a system yet unsuccessful in achieving its target orbit. At least in this spectacle the dead may educate the living before these new launch vehicles are inevitably assigned responsibility for human flight.

Not that such flights will ever be 100% safe, of course nothing is, not even the astronaut's bus ride out to the pad. (Nothing calamitous has happened yet thank goodness!) Those brave if constructively nutty people who accept the challenge to sit atop an exploding candle for a literally "out of this world" ride have not only been staged as heroes but are experienced in heroism. They've earned the right to be heard. Which is not the same as they're always right.

Three venerated members of our astronaut corps have been speaking their minds lately. That's a good thing for the public anyway even if what's being said leaves a little more clay in their feet. (Also recall Twain's advice about keeping the mouth shut!) Ed Mitchell has drawn attention positing non-terrestrial provenance of certain UFO's, immediately invoking Sagan's wisdom: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Mitchell acknowledges he has none. We can wait.

Then there's John Glenn, lately denigrating the effort to establish lunar colonies. He believes they distract from Mars and many agree with him. With all due respect Mars ain't four days away and a pile of perchlorate isn't worth one life spent getting there needlessly. It will wait.

Even Buzz Aldrin stirred the tubes a little by bad mouthing Star Trek vis-à-vis space exploration, but that's just a terrible misperception easily remedied. (I doubt Buzz will give me the opportunity but the invitation always stands.) Both John and Buzz and others are doing a magnificent, insufficiently lauded job in keeping America's space program alive. Godspeed to all our heroes in space, even those that didn't quite make it.