Though a place in paradise may be a matter of faith, space burials offer the opportunity to spend eternity in the heavens by way of cremated human remains being launched into orbit.
Early 20th century pulp magazines like Amazing Stories were among the first to dream of sending ashes to the stars, while the 1965 satirical movie The Loved One also discussed firing remains into the ether. The first company to put the idea into commercial practice, however, was US-based Celestis – whose team includes a former director of the NASA Kennedy Space Center and retired NASA astronauts – when they sent a portion of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s remains into space on a 1997 rocket flight along with the remains of other individuals such as psychedelic drug advocate and author Timothy Leary.
While pretty much every client shares an obvious love for Star Trek or Star Wars, Celestis CEO and co-founder Charles M Chafer tells Verve that other commonalities include a passion for exploration or professional affiliations with NASA, the US Air Force, and the aerospace industry.
“We have both clients who practise religion and who are not religious,” he adds. “I would say the majority of our clients lean more toward the spiritual, with a desire to be at one with the cosmos.”
Space burial companies generally send 1-3 grams of someone’s remains into orbit, with each one offering various levels – and lengths – of flight ranging from suborbital where ashes are sent briefly to the cosmos before returning to Earth a few hours later, through to being blasted into deep space for eternity.
“Our services provide an opportunity to celebrate a loved one’s life,” continues Charles. “At the memorial service we conduct the day before the launch, the mood is commemorative and reflective, but come lift-off, there’s widespread cheering and high fiving.”
There are also options to be fired to the moon – to orbit it and land the surface – and to track loved ones’ galactic journeys via apps and videos. Celestis even offers flights for the remains of pets. “We’ve had people that fly with their pets and those that have sent their pets on a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight individually,” says Charles. “It’s a way to celebrate their loyal companion.”
New Zealand-founded company StardustME sent its first purpose-built capsule containing cremated human remains into space aboard the Falcon 9 reusable SpaceX rocket. The ashes, encased within 50-cent piece-sized space-engineered tokens mounted in a trackable state-of-the-art satellite, will orbit 500km above the Earth’s surface (around the same altitude as the International Space Station) before re-entering the atmosphere “blazing as a shooting star” and “leaving no waste or residual space junk” in around five years’ time.
Stu Potter, co-founder and managing director of StardustME, says “it was one of those whacky ideas that once verbalised just wouldn’t go away and I knew we had to make it happen”. “At the end of the day we are made up of stardust,” he adds. “Nearly all the elements in the human body were made in a star, which will go on to seed the next generation of stars.”
“Nearly all the elements in the human body were made in a star, which will go on to seed the next generation of stars.”
Thomas Civeit, founder of Elysium Space, believes space burials to be “part of the new space movement” that’s “helping lead the way toward democratisation of access to space”.
With sub-orbital flights on the likes of Virgin Galactic costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and full orbital flights costing tens of millions, memorial flights – which cost as little as $2,995 – offer an affordable way of journeying to the stars, even though it comes with the massive catch of being your final journey.
“We’ve had so many remarkable stories, too many to share,” says Charles. “One client, Gregory Brown of Oklahoma, a 14-year-old boy with leukaemia, flew on our Millennial Flight. Greg was the very first recipient of a transfusion from the National Bone Marrow Registry. He attracted global attention for wanting to be an astronaut. We were able to make his final wish a reality.”
