Space burials launch cremated remains out of the atmosphere.
Space burial is the launching of human remains into space. Missions may go into orbit around the Earth or to extraterrestrial bodies such as the Moon, or farther into space.
Remains are sealed until the spacecraft burns up upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere or they reach their extraterrestrial destinations. Suborbital flights briefly transport them into space then return to Earth where they can be recovered. Small samples of remains are usually launched to minimize the cost of launching mass into space, thereby making such services more affordable.
History and typology
The concept of launching human remains into space using conventional rockets was proposed by the science fiction author Neil R. Jones in the novella "The Jameson Satellite", which was published in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories in 1931.[1] It was later proposed as a commercial service in the 1965 movie, The Loved One,[2] and by Richard DeGroot in a The Seattle Times newspaper article on April 3, 1977.[3] Since 1997, the private company Celestis has conducted numerous space burials flying as secondary payloads.[4]
The first private space burial, Celestis' Earthview 01: The Founders Flight, was launched on April 21, 1997. An aircraft departing from the Canary Islands carried a Pegasus rocket containing samples of the remains of 24 people to an altitude of 11 km (6.8 mi) above the Atlantic Ocean. The rocket then carried the remains into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 578 km (359 mi) and a perigee of 551 km (342 mi), orbiting the Earth once every 96 minutes until re-entry on May 20, 2002, northeast of Australia. Famous people on this flight included Roddenberry and Timothy Leary.[6]
Suborbital flights
Short flights that cross the boundary of space without attempting to reach orbital velocity are a cost-effective method of space burial. The remains do not burn up and are either recovered or lost.
Moon burial
The first moon burial was that of Eugene Merle Shoemaker, a portion of whose cremated remains were flown to the Moon by NASA.[7] Shoemaker's former colleague Carolyn Porco, a University of Arizona professor, proposed and produced the tribute of having Shoemaker's ashes launched aboard the NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft.[8] Ten days after Shoemaker's passing, Porco had the go-ahead from NASA administrators and delivered the ashes to the Lunar Prospector Mission Director Scott Hubbard at the NASA Ames Research Center.[7][9] The ashes were accompanied by a piece of brass foil inscribed with an image of Comet Hale–Bopp, an image of a Meteor Crater in northern Arizona, and a passage from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.[7] The Lunar Prospector spacecraft was launched on January 6, 1998, and impacted the south polar region of the Moon on July 31, 1999.[10]
Missions to the Moon are proposed by both Elysium Space[11] and Celestis as part of a mission by Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh. The first mission in January 2024 failed to reach the Moon due to a failure of the spacecraft and instead reentered Earth's atmosphere shortly after.[12]
Pet burial
In 2014, Celestis launched Celestis Pets, a pet memorial spaceflight service for animal cremated remains.[13] Prior to then, Bismarck, a Monroe, Washington police dog may have flown on a 2012 memorial spaceflight. When this news broke, Celestis' president said that if dog ashes were on the rocket, the person who supplied the cremated remains likely violated the contract they signed with Celestis.[14]
Dedicated spacecraft
On May 17, 2017, Elysium Space announced the world's first memorial flight involving a dedicated spacecraft. The CubeSat was placed as a secondary payload on a SpaceXFalcon 9 rocket as part of a dedicated rideshare mission called SSO-A planned by Spaceflight. The launch took place from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on December 3, 2018.[15] The launch was successful, however, industry sources have noted that the Elysium Star spacecraft remained attached to the deployer due to a failure to procure proper licensing.[16]
Space burial businesses
Space burial businesses generally refer to their service offering as "Memorial Spaceflight".
Clyde Tombaugh (1906–1997), American astronomer and discoverer of Pluto in 1930. A small sample of Tombaugh's ashes are aboard New Horizons, the first spacecraft to attempt to pass by and photograph Pluto. This is the first sample of human cremated remains which will escape the solar system.[29]
Majel Barrett (1932–2008), American actress who played Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series; wife of Gene Roddenberry. A symbolic portion of both her cremated remains and Roddenberry's cremated remains will be launched into space on a future Celestis mission.[47][48]
^Porco, Carolyn C. (February 2000). "Destination Moon". Astronomy. Retrieved June 8, 2013. The next day, I drove to Phoenix for a flight to Ames Research Center in California, where the following day, a Monday, I delivered the whole package to Scott Hubbard.
^ abWilliams, David. "Lunar Prospector". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
^Cloherty, Megan (December 5, 2014). "Man's remains travel to space with NASA's Orion". WTOP News. Retrieved December 7, 2014. Father of two and aeronautical engineer, 37-year-old Patrick O'Malley worked for more than a decade towards the launch of the Orion capsule.
^ ab"Celestis Memorial Spaceflights – The Explorers Flight". CelestisInc. Archived from the original on March 15, 2014. Retrieved March 14, 2014. The Explorers Flight, carrying cremated remains samples of over 200 people, was launched August 2, 2008 aboard a Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 1 rocket.
^ abc"Legacy Flight". Celestis Memorial Spaceflights. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
^Harwood, William (September 29, 2004). "SpaceShipOne takes wild suborbital flight". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved April 1, 2015. At the post-flight news conference, Rutan revealed his mother's ashes were on board SpaceShipOne "and I was very very proud to have carried her," Melvill said.
