London, Dec 28 (IANS): A private astronaut secretly stashed the ashes of late James Doohan, who played the character Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the original Star Trek television series, aboard the International Space Station (ISS) about 12 years ago, the Times of London reported.

The details of how Richard Garriott who is one of the first private astronauts to travel on the space station smuggled Doohan's ashes in 2008 during a 12-day mission has been made public only now.

Until now, only Garriott and Doohan's family knew that the ashes of the late actor have been stashed into the space station's Columbus module, said the report on Friday.

During his visit to the ISS, Garriott put a laminated picture of the late actor and some of his ashes under the floor of the Columbus.

"It was completely clandestine," Garriott was quoted as saying to the Times.

"His family were very pleased that the ashes made it up there but we were all disappointed we didn't get to talk about it publicly for so long. Now enough time has passed that we can."

Doohan's son Chris said his father's wish was to make it to the space station.

After the Star Trek actor died in 2005 at the age of 85, his family found it hard to fulfil his wish of making it to the ISS after official requests to transport Doohan's ashes to the ISS were rejected.

Chris thanked Garriott for fulfilling that wish.