HOUSTON, Texas — At 35 years old, Houston Police Department officer Jason Knox had many titles: Husband. Father. Hero.
But one you may find surprising -- Trekkie.
"When I tell you he was a Star Trek fan, like I can't," his wife Keira Knox said. "I mean he grew up watching the show. Like all of them."
Jason collected the toys and was even Captain Kirk for Halloween.
"Even now to this day, I have a Star Trek tree, like an entire Christmas tree of just Star Trek," Keira said.
One thing Keira says her husband was serious about was space.
"And he kind of joked one day and said 'yeah I want to be launched into space,' and I was like whatever, and he was like 'no for science and research, send my whole body up there,' and I was like okay. I didn't really think anything of it," Keira said.
Until three years ago, Keira and her family got the worst call of their lives.
"He was, I mean, the most amazing person. He touched so many lives," Keira said.
Jason's HPD helicopter had crashed. The husband and father of two was gone. But sitting in the funeral home with his mother, Keira says, they found a way to fulfill his lifelong dream of going to space.
"I looked at his mom, and was like, you know we've got to do this right?" Keira said. "It's going up there, and it won't come back. So a little part of him will always be up there."
Most of Jason's ashes rest at their home, but a small part of him was put in a capsule. Later this year, it'll be placed on a rocket to forever orbit the sun.
"This gives them their opportunity to be able to go to space," Colby Youngblood with Celestis Memorial Spaceflight said.
The Houston-based company specializes in memorial space flights -- sending a piece of you or your loved one into orbit, to the moon, and this year, for the first time ever, into deep space.
Jason will be on board that mission, and he's in good company.
"We found out that Star Trek creators and Star Trek casts are on this flight," Keira said.
Along with Star Trek royalty, DNA from three U.S. presidents will be onboard.
"George Washington, President Eisenhower and President Kennedy," Youngblood said.
Memorial Space Flights aren't cheap, but Will Schroeter with Earthmen Funeral Directors says it's something special for families to consider.
"It's one of several different choices that they have to make," Schroeter said.
But for Jason's family, it was an easy choice.
"He would be over the moon excited about it," Keira said.
They're sending him over the moon, where his memory and a small part of him will forever 'live long and prosper.'