Burial in Space
Published on Apr 30, 2007 at 12:02 am.
3 Comments.
Filed under space businesses.
In 1982, I went to see the movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan in the theater. Like many long time Trekies, I was shocked to find that Spock died in the movie. At the end of the movie was a scene where Spock was given a military funeral reminiscent of a naval burial at sea, only this was a burial in space. A photon torpedo tube was used as a coffin to fire his body into space. Spock was not the first fictional character to get a space burial. I can think of space burials in science fiction all the way back to the 1950’s, and there are probably several earlier than that. The 1955 film Conquest of Space had a space burial. And the 1956 film Forbidden Planet (one of my favorites) had scenes where crew members were buried on a distant planet. And, even the Disney film The Black Hole had a space burial scene. And, of course, there have been countless space burials in science fiction novels.
But, all of that is fiction. However, there have also been real space burials of a sort in recent years. And, what brings me to bring this up in the first place is that just days ago, some of the ashes of James Doohan, who played Scotty in Star Trek, were launched into space. But, he wasn’t the first Star Trek personality to have his remains put into space. Gene Roddenberry preceded him with some of his ashes going into orbit ten years ago. Even Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto’s discoverer, had his ashes go into space, and some of Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes even went to the Moon. And, riding along with Doohan into space were the ashes of about 200 others people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper.
The company that launched Doohan and Cooper, Celestis, a division of Space Services, Inc., has several options ranging from a suborbital flight for about $500, to an orbital flight of nearly $1300, to even a trip out of Earth’s gravitational well for $12,500. Doohan and Cooper’s space “burial” was a suborbital flight lasting just a few minutes, going only just into space. The orbital flights are very low Earth orbit, and they decay soon, so the remains don’t stay in orbit adding to space debris. Celestis isn’t the only company offering this service. But, all seem to have a similar service. Rather than sending an entire intact body into space as in science fiction, the body is first cremated. Then, only a few grams of ashes are flown. It would be too expensive to fly the entire remains. The Celestis web page offers a mission guarantee that if the rocket fails, they’ll fly more ashes from the deceased on the next mission.
So, that’s the background. Now, for my thoughts. Hmm. I am not really sure what to think! My first thought is, “Wow! That is cool. Scotty finally got to go into space.” And then I think that for only $500, it would be nice if a few grams of me got to fly into space. After all, there is virtually no change that I’ll get to do it while alive. But, then I think more. This seems pretty over the top for what is really just a symbolic thing. Now, an occasional rocket flight isn’t so bad, but if this were popular, then you’d have to begin to worry about safety and environmental impact from all the rockets ferrying ashes into space. Now, if a rocket were already going into space, for example in launching a satellite or even just a test flight for a new rocket, then I don’t see anything wrong with someone’s ashes going along for the ride. But, what do I make of flights primarily just to send people’s ashes into space? Honestly, I don’t know. I whole heartedly favor increased private enterprise in space exploration and exploitation. So, a few of these flights do work to help bring more private companies into space, and that is good. These flights help fund these companies so that they can do other, more useful, things in the future, and that is good. So, as I said, I really don’t know what to make of sending people’s ashes into space. Oh, and it is my understanding that the rocket that flew Doohan’s ashes may also have contained scientific instruments to monitor the upper atmosphere, though the press doesn’t report that, only that human remains were on board.
-Astroprof
Brian on April 30, 2007 at 12:14 pm: 1
Now, an occasional rocket flight isn’t so bad, but if this were popular,
I mentioned this to my wife. From the look on her face I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Ben Cooper on May 6, 2007 at 12:25 pm: 2
That company doesn’t send rockets up just to bury people in space - they rent payload space from launches that are already happening - and the ashes stay attached to the main payload - so it doesn’t contribute to any additional launches, or any ’space debris’. I think it’s pretty cool, I think there were about 200 people on that flight and the BBC live coverage showed the families were laughing and crying with joy about the whole thing.
Astroprof on May 6, 2007 at 2:20 pm: 3
Yes, Ben, that is what I was thinking, but the US press didn’t mention anything about that. And, of course, the event is really all for the survivors, anyway.