This Texas company has sent remains of sent 'Star Trek' actors, others to space

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2 days ago

Since the dawn of humanity, we humans have found countless ways to honor our dead.
From traditional burials to the scattering of one's ashes at sea, the methods for the deceased to be honored are as varied as the cultures that comprise our world.
But what about those who prefer to be memorialized on a more cosmic scale? Well, it turns out they have that option, too.
For about three decades, a company based in Texas has billed itself as the first and most prominent business to offer what's referred to as "space burials." Celestis, which recently conducted a mission from California, offers services that involve sending cremated remains or human DNA beyond Earth's atmosphere.
Often, familiar faces and well-known public figures − from "Star Trek" cast members to U.S. presidents − have had their remains flown to orbit as part of a celestial burial or memorial.
Many of Celestis' memorial spaceflights have launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Southern California. Here's what to know about Celestis and its memorial spaceflights.
Celestis is a company based in Houston, Texas, specializing in transporting human remains to space for cosmic memorials.
Capsules containing DNA and human remains are included as payloads on spacecraft launched into orbit from all over the world by other companies, including SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance.
Celestis' services allow for families to pay for cremated remains in capsules or DNA to be launched into space, where they can either return intact or remain until they reenter Earth's atmosphere, "harmlessly vaporizing like a shooting star in final tribute," the company says on its website. In another offering, the company facilitates the transportation of memorial capsules to interplanetary space well beyond the moon.
Elysium Space, based in San Francisco, California, also offers memorial spaceflights.
The company has conducted just three "space burial" missions since 2015, including from Hawaii, California and Florida, according to its website.
Celestis' most recent payload of memorial capsules was included in a SpaceX rideshare mission known as Transporter 14. The mission got off the ground Monday, June 23, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
A total of 166 individual Celestis memorial capsules were on board a Nyx spacecraft manufactured by Europe-based The Exploration Company (TEC,) which hitched a ride on SpaceX's famous Falcon 9 rocket.
The payload of memorial capsules was part of about 70 total payloads, including small satellites, that the Falcon 9 helped to deliver for paying customers to a sun-synchronous orbit, meaning they matched Earth's rotation around the sun.
The launch was meant to be Celestis' first-ever to return from an altitude high enough to be considered Earth's orbit.
The Nyx module reached low-Earth orbit, where it traveled for three hours at about 17,000 miles per hour and completed two full orbits around Earth.
But instead of safely reentering Earth's atmosphere to land in the Pacific Ocean as planned, the Nyx spacecraft's parachute failed and it crashed into the sea, losing the capsules.
If you want to send your deceased loved one on a final cosmic journey, the cost to do so isn't that much different from the price of the average typical funeral or burial service.
The cheapest option of sending memorial capsules to space and back, known as "Earth rise," starts at $3,495. The price to send a loved one's remains all the way up to orbit starts at $4,995.
After that, though, the costs for Celestis' services start to climb.
Both the company's lunar burial and interplanetary services start at $12,995, according to its website.
The recent mission was Celestis' 25th overall since it was founded in 1994.
The company's maiden voyage took place in April 1997, when a Pegasus rocket carrying the remains of 24 people, including "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, launched over the Spanish Canary Islands. The flight capsules on board a Celestis spacecraft then reentered Earth's atmosphere about a month later.
Celestis' first and only successful lunar burial mission to date then occurred a year later in January 1998 from what was then still called the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Conducted at NASA's request, the mission included a capsule on board the agency's Lunar Prospector containing the ashes of geologist Eugene Shoemaker.
Celestis has no more missions planned for 2025, according to its website.
The next flight, planned for early 2026, appears to be an orbital mission launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida. Reservations are open until Aug. 1, 2025.
Celestis previously made headlines in January 2024 when its plans to land human remains on the moon's surface attracted some controversy.
The plan was for the remains and DNA of more than 70 deceased people to be included on a lunar lander bound for the moon. That included – once again – remains of Roddenberry, as well as science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.
Elysium Space also contracted to have cremated human remains and DNA of clients placed aboard the lunar lander.
But Navajo Nation, the largest tribe of Native Americans in the United States, vehemently opposed the lunar burial, penning a letter decrying the plans as "a profound desecration."
Ultimately, though, the remains never made it to the moon's surface anyway. Pittsburgh-based aerospace company Astrobotic's Peregrine lander fell short of its destination when it began leaking a "critical" amount of propellant – instead burning up in Earth's atmosphere after launch.
"Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry and Arthur C. Clarke, best known for authoring "2001: A Space Odyssey" that inspired Stanley Kubrick's film of the same name, are not the only well-known people whose remains have flown to outer space on a Celestis mission.
Among the notable names to have been included are several actors from the original "Star Trek" series and NASA astronauts.
Here's a list Celestis provided to the USA TODAY Network:
James Doohan, who portrayed Scotty in the original "Star Trek" series (remember the phrase, "Beam me up, Scotty"?)
Nichelle Nichols, the first Black woman featured in a major television series who portrayed Nyota Uhura in "Star Trek"
DeForest Kelley, who portrayed Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the original "Star Trek" series
Three American presidents, George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, whose DNA in the form of hair samples was included on past flights
Several NASA astronauts, including L. Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, and NASA's first Australian-American Astronaut, Philip K. Chapman
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [e-mail]
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cosmic burials? Company lets you send love one's remains to space