A private company will send your ashes to the moon
Have you ever thought about what you want done with your body when you die? Many Americans opt for the traditional graveyard burial, others donate themselves to science. But if those don’t sound like the posthumous experience you are looking for, a Houston-based firm has something different on offer. For just $13,000—or a subscription fee of $99 per month until you pay it off—Celestis Memorial Spaceflights will send your cremated ashes to the moon.
If you choose to fly to space in an aluminium capsule the size of a lipstick tube you will be in good company. Celestis’s pioneer flight in 1997 carried the remains of Star Trek’s screenwriter, a German rocket engineer, a Princeton University professor, a restaurateur and a Japanese boy. In the quarter-century since, the firm has sent 2,300 capsules into orbit. It has no doubt been helped by a huge increase in the share of Americans getting cremated, from 21% in the mid-1990s to 61% today.
For some the prospect is life-changing. Don McInnis, a disabled man living in Nova Scotia who has never held a job, is only in his 50s but has already paid off 20% of his flight. He has dreamed of exploring space since he was six years old but his family always told him he wouldn’t amount to much. “Because I’m disabled NASA wouldn’t take me as an astronaut, so this might be my one crack at getting into space,” he says. He plans to go on the Voyager Mission, on which he hopes to perpetually circle the sun.
2024-03-07 09:16:59
Original from www.economist.com