A week ago I mentioned the SpaceX Falcon9 launch and resupply of the ISS. The capsule carried 1000lbs of food, water, and supplies. Vital stuff if you’re going to spend months in a tin can with no chance of phoning for pizza.
One other portion of the payload received a lot less media attention – the ashes of 306 people.
This burial in space was organized by Celestis, Inc., apparently the “pioneer and global leader in Memorial Spaceflights.” They offer “services” for low earth orbit and deep space flights.
A couple of years ago, they launched Gene Roddenberry, his wife, and James Doohan (Scotty) into deep space. And while the US ponders a return to the moon, Celestis sent a “symbolic portion” of Dr. Eugene Shoemaker to the moon in 1999.
Would you plan for something like this? And if so, with whom would you leave the Earth?
Bonus points if you want to nominate someone to leave the Earth as soon as possible!
Cheers!
(Image courtesy of NASA)
Wow, Nigel! What an upbeat topic for this lovely Monday morning.
I have told my husband I will come back to haunt him if he doesn’t bury me in the cheapest way possible. Rent a fancy, schmancy casket (if he has to in order to save face), then transfer me to a pine box. The most important part of me will already swirling around up there hoping creative sneakiness doesn’t knock me out of orbit.
Why do I think this choice for disposal of our ashes-to-ashes is NOT a cost-effective alternative?
No bonus points for me. I can’t name one specific person I would “off” given the opportunity — but any and all pedophiles would get a cheer on send-off from me.
Cheer(io)s!
Hi Gloria
Yeah, not the happiest of subjects to start the week, but since my week starts on Tuesday I’m taking it as closing out the least one.
Cost effective? Hummm, it’s difficult to see what could be cost effective vs sprinkling the ashes on, say, the lawn!
Cheers 🙂
If I had my way, my final send-off would be a cardboard box, a big bonfire, and all the beer my friends could drink. I’ll probably never know or care what happens, but I really, really hope nobody turns me into space litter.
Imagine all the poor aliens cruising along in their spaceships, deploring the way the cosmos has been messed up for future generations…
Hi Diane.
Cardboard box and beer – cool. At one stage a friend and I were going to start a savings account to pay for a wake at what was then our local pub. It seemed like a good idea (as these things always do after you’ve been in the bar for long enough). To cut a long story short, my friend bought the pub and I left for Texas. I only mention this in case you’re hoping for a first class ticket to a free night at a pub in the middle of nowhere when I “pop-off.”
The whole space litter thing is pretty serious, and to me this is just a stupid idea, but if you can make money at it someone’s going to do it.
Cheers!
I don’t love the idea of a bunch of mortal earth remains floating around up there. (Although for Gene Roddenberry and James Doohan I make an exception.) Haven’t we have left enough space junk behind?
As for people I’d like to shoot into space as soon as possible, I’ve got so many on my list that I’d be guilty of polluting the entire Milky Way, and I don’t want to be responsible for that.
Hi Madame Weebles
Yeah, space junk is a pretty serious issue, a bit like the asteroid that’s heading our way. Glad to hear your restraining yourself on my offer of shooting people into space, this whole space launch thing isn’t cheap (unlike me).
Cheers!
Hi Madame Weebles. “As for people I’d like to shoot into space as soon as possible, I’ve got so many on my list that I’d be guilty of polluting the entire Milky Way, and I don’t want to be responsible for that.”
Perhaps more localized “accidents” would be more cost effective.
Perhaps, it’s not so much a matter of litter if you just adjust your aim. Don’t shoot these miscreants into space, aim them into the sun. It solves your problem, and keeps the neighborhood neat and tidy.
That solves two problems right there!
DH wants a Viking funeral pyre. Methinks most men do. they must. DH is not very original… except his proposal. I give him full points on his proposal.
Ah ha, Viking funeral pyre, now you’re talking. Mind you, if the launch doesn’t go to well you could end up with the same sort of effect.
You’re just teasing us with the whole “proposal” things aren’t you? Or are you lining us up for a post?
Cheers!
I’m not going to put my suggestion in writing. I don’t want the Secret Service knocking on my door and asking me what I meant.
LOL. Yeah, might be an idea to keep the names encrypted, in Tibetan, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet guarded by leopards. Alternatively you could leave it with a bunch of “girls” in South America since they seem to have become an integral part of our security.
Cheers!
CJ West pimped you out on my blog, so I just HAD to stop by.
Space travel – I’d go as soon as my children were being raised, but only if I could take my dogs. Maybe the anti-gravity would slow the wrinkle process!
Hi Kim.
I just check out your blog. Very nice of CJ to pimp me out, sadly its the day I post about what you’re going to do after you die, but hey, any publicity is good! 🙂
Cheers!
Sir Nigel, please come to my blog to collect an award: http://fabiobuenoauthor.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/sunshine-and-other-simple-pleasures/
I’d love to leave the earth when my story arc here is done. But I’ve told my family my ashes can be scattered on a beach. No fuss.
Cheers Fabio!
My organs will go to anyone that can use them. The rest of me will go to a medical school. When the leftovers are reduced to ashes my family knows where to leave them (not in space). In the galactic sense I’m very much the local boy. This planet is my home.
Hi Holmes
Yeah, I carry a card as a donor and I don’t feel an urge to have the inorganic salts that make up my body launched into space. If I go into space I want to be alive.
Cheeers