Funeral Trends In Outer Space

Illustrations (NASA)

JAKARTA - Technology is growing, human traditions are changing. If previously the funeral was buried or cremated, now a number of companies are offering the concept of burial in outer space.

The concept that was carried was "resting among the stars." The remains of humans, which have been cremated in the form of ashes, will be sent outside the Earth's atmosphere.

Is Memorial Spaceflight, a company founded in 1994 by Charles M. Chafer and R. Chan Tysor, providing this unusual funeral service.

Citing the official Celestis Inc website, it is the first and only private company to have a funeral service in outer space. This company has even obtained permission from Space Services Inc. of America (SSIoA) to send the ashes into the earth's atmosphere.

The first person to use this funeral service was Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, a 1960s icon Dr. Timothy Leary, and physicist from Dr. Princeton University. Gerard K. O'Neill. The ashes of the two were floated in space using the Orbital Pegasus and Taurus spacecraft in 1997.

Of course, funeral costs in space are not cheap. The price of each package offered starts from US $ 1.495 or Rp.21.5 million to the most expensive starting from US $ 12,500.

Space Burial Business

Apart from Celestis Inc, there is also Elysium Space, which also provides services to launch human remains that were cremated into space for the first time in 2017. This company is an initiative of Thomas Civeit, a former NASA scientist.

Human ash was launched into space and orbited the Earth for several months before burning in the atmosphere like a shooting star. The difference with Celestis Inc, the company has a mobile application to track the ashes in orbit.

Elysium also collaborated with commercial space transportation companies such as Orbital Sciences and SpaceX to accommodate human ashes into space.

When Elysium Space customers purchase memorial spaceflight, they will receive an ash capsule, which can be engraved with up to three initials, and a mini spoon for transferring the symbolic portion of the ash to the capsule.

After the plane launches, customers will be able to track the trips of their loved ones on the free mobile app available on Apple's App Store and Google Play. This application, in real time, will show you the spacecraft's location and how it will view the world from that location.

Similar to Celestis Inc, Elysium Space also has three packages of burial options in space, including the Shooting Star Memorial, the ash will be released into Earth orbit so that after orbiting the Earth it is expected that part of it will fall as a shooting star.

As for the Lunar Memorial, the ashes of the deceased will be sent to the surface of the Moon. This service is intended to help create some kind of unusual warning for people who are left behind. The price is set at IDR171 million.

Finally, the Milky Way Memorial, the ashes of the deceased will be sent to the farthest reaches of space until they leave the Solar System and wade through the infinite universe.

NASA Prepares Burial Area on the Moon

The latest mentions that NASA is preparing a burial area on the Moon, in 2021. Later NASA will work with Celestis Inc to provide a funeral procession on the Moon, on the Luna 2 mission.

Quoting Space.com, Mission Luna 2 will be carried out in July 2021 by sending a spacecraft to the Moon region called Lacus Mortis. To date, only one person whose ashes have been sent to the Moon, namely planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker.

This NASA service is said to have the potential to bury the ashes of people who have died several years earlier. According to NASA, the ashes of bodies are said to be easier to carry on trips into space than public bodies.

"The Celestis capsule will remain on the Moon as a tribute to people who never stop reaching for the stars. Every time you see the Moon, you know that your loved one is in a place where people rarely get there," Celestis said in his promotion.

For the upcoming July 2021 flight, there is already an ashes list of people who want to be buried on the Moon. They include author of the novel 'Space Odyssey' Arthur C Clarke, NASA geologist Mareta West and skydiver Micah Couch.

The Luna 2 mission will carry the Astrobotic-made Peregrine Lander flown on a Vulcan Centaur rocket. This Lander will later put the ashes on the surface of the Moon. He will carry 6 containers, each containing 10-13 capsules of corpse ashes.

The funeral costs in this month are priced at 12,500 US dollars or Rp176.5 million.