Here's how the latest Blue Origin space flight paid tribute to 'Star Trek' icon Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy passed away in 2015, but his daughter, Julie Nimoy, found a way for the Star Trek icon to still visit the final frontier. Among the passengers aboard this morning's Blue Origin New Shepard Mission NS-19 space flight was a small, but meaningful token of Nimoy's memory — a silver pendant emblazoned with the initials of Spock's signature phrase: "Live long and prosper." It's a pendant that his daughter wears proudly as a way to continue her close bond with her father.

Julie Nimoy wasn't aboard the Blue Origin spacecraft herself, though. Instead, she lent it to the daughter of another prominent space traveler: Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father was the pioneering astronaut, Alan Shepard. Nimoy approached Churchley about carrying the "LLAP" pendent on her flight to the cosmos, and she readily agreed. "My dad would have wanted to launch into space and spread his enduring message of hope and inspiration for all to live long and prosper," Nimoy told Yahoo Entertainment via e-mail.

The younger Nimoy was inspired to reach out to Blue Origin after one of her father's former Starfleet companions made the round trip journey to the edge of space and back. In October, William Shatner boarded the very first Blue Origin space flight, and became the oldest person ever to stare into the blackness of space. "I hope I never recover from this," the 90-year-old actor said after the experience, which was filmed for the upcoming Amazon Prime Video documentary, Shatner in Space. "I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don't want to lose it. It's so much larger than me — and life."

Joining Churchley aboard the NS-19 were Good Morning America host, Michael Strahan; investor Evan Dick; CEO Dylan Taylor; and father and son duo Lane and Cameron Bess. But for many of the viewers that tuned in to watch the live-streamed flight, the most important crew member remained Nimoy's pendant.