FARMINGTON, Connecticut USA — A few grams of an astronaut and an actor who played one on television will get a brief taste of space this fall atop a Connecticut company’s solid-fuel rocket.

Gordon Cooper, who logged 222 hours in NASA’s Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, and James Doohan, chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott of the Star Trek starship Enterprise — a bit of what’s left of them, at least — will inaugurate a new memorial flight service conducted jointly by UP Aerospace Inc. of Farmington and Celestis Inc. of Houston.

The flight, which will include the cremated remains of 118 additional people, is scheduled for October.

Celestis, a division of Space Services, promises "a step into the universe" for the deceased. The departed will lift off from the "Spaceport America" south of Albuquerque.

However, the small capsules of ash will spend only around five minutes about 140 miles above Earth before descending from the heavens on parachutes for a soft landing 30 miles away on the White Sands Missile Range.

They will ascend on a SpaceLoft XL launch vehicle designed and built by UP Aerospace. SpaceLoft XL is shaped like a 10-inch diameter, 21-foot-tall knitting needle with fins, but its modest size is deceiving.

The vehicle, powered by a 12,000-pound thrust engine, accelerates to five times the speed of sound within 15 seconds after liftoff. The craft reaches its suborbital apogee of 70 to 140 miles in about 2.5 minutes, said Eric Knight, chief executive officer of UP Aerospace and co-designer of the rocket.

"We’re the only company in the world providing access to space to the public. We’re like a small airlines," Knight said.

Universities, scientists, businesses and educators have put payloads into space on previous launches. Other aerospace companies also rely on the SpaceLoft XL to test new components, Knight said.

Payloads cannot exceed 110 pounds or 10,500 cubic inches. Four and 10-pound options are popular, he said, and can be launched for hundreds of dollars.

UP Aerospace plans two launches in September, before the post-cremation memorial flight.

Knight said UP Aerospace has no plans to launch the living. That would require a larger, more complex launcher and generate high anxiety.

Charles Chafer, chief executive officer of Space Services and Celestis, said, "With our Legacy Flights, the dream of spaceflight and the desire to take part in the opening of the space frontier can be realized, and available to everyone."

Legacy Flights start at $495.

Celestis also offers orbital, lunar and deep-space flights using larger commercial launch services.

UP Aerospace envisions 12 launches next year, and 30 or more by 2008. By then, the company hopes to have a rocket that can achieve Earth orbit.

Engineers are working on that right now, Knight said.

Knight traces his interest in rocketry to 1964, when he and a cousin began assembling and launching model rockets. The motor in SpaceLoft XL is approximately equal to 65,000 model engines.

SpaceLoft XL was designed from scratch, he said. The vehicle incorporates composites and other advanced materials. The engine is a solid mixture of ammonium perchlorate and fuel, similar to the Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters.

The fuel is a hollow cylinder specially shaped and contoured to provide optimal thrust levels as the motors burns, Knight said. "Designing took years. It’s a complex system. The laws of physics are the same for everyone -- speed, stress, temperature," Knight said.

"It’s rocket science, a very challenging thing. Every part has to work perfectly," he said.

One of the advantages of solid fuel is relative simplicity of design. SpaceLoft XL has virtually no moving parts. However, ensuring that the fuel ignites evenly, from the top of the booster, is complicated, Knight said.

The rocket is spin-stabilized by its fins, which can be adjusted to rotate the vehicle between 1.5 to 6 times a second.

Two parachutes blossom on the way down, one each for the booster and the avionics and payload. White Sands personnel track the rocket on radar.

The whole trip, from lift-off to landing, takes about 30 minutes.

Copyright © 2006 The Bristol Press