“In a last poetic moment,” says the company website, “the spacecraft will harmlessly reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, blazing as a shooting star.” “It gives you closure,” says Civeit. "Eventually, in a last poetic moment, the spacecraft will harmlessly re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, blazing as a shooting star.". On a more positive note, says Civeit, “We consider ourselves as part of new space movement. And for $12,500 you can go all the way to the moon, or even leave the Earth-moon system entirely. With our Voyager package, you can launch ashes into space for just £345. It might come as a surprise that space burial is already a thing, but a company called Celestis (“Making Your Loved One Part of Space History”) has been providing the service since 1997, when pinches of 1960s icon Timothy Leary, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and several others went into orbit. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox. ... It’s a two-and-a-half hour process and it can cost … Elysium Space is a pioneer, it turns out, only in terms of cost. Celestis Memorial Spaceflight make the dream of spaceflight a reality by launching a symbolic portion of cremated remains into near-space, Earth orbit, to the lunar surface or even beyond. Missions may go into orbit around the Earth or to extraterrestrial bodies such as the Moon, or farther into space. Typical costs are £70-£100 per rocket. sunrise-1756274_1920.jpg. Elysium Space offers memorial services to have a symbolic portion of a departed's ashes launched into space, Earth orbit, the Moon, and Deep Space. We partner with the courier company for transporting cremated remains around the UK, sending ashes abroad or having them returned to the UK. Send your ashes up into space! Family and friends can follow the progress of the spacecraft with an Apple iOS or Google Android app. Now that the era of private space flight is finally beginning to dawn, plenty of entrepreneurs are itching to sending you into orbit—Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic; Elon Musk of SpaceX; Bas Lansdorp of Mars One, and more. Starting at $12,500 Voyager Service … A San Franciso-based company called Elysium Space pledges to send the cremated remains of clients out into space for $2,000. And you'll never see this message again. Thomas Civeit wants to take you to space, too. “It’s been our experience that people periodically want to get into this business,” says Celestis co-founder Charles Chafer. All Rights Reserved. You or your loved one will venture into space as part of a real space mission, riding alongside a commercial or scientific satellite. It will take place at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California when it does happen. However, for the ‘cremains’ to enter orbit, the rocket company first has to deal with what Elon Musk , the SpaceX founder, has … Would you want your ashes scattered in space? A company planning to send the ashes of dead people into orbit said on Tuesday that it will hitch a flight on one of Elon Musk's SpaceX rockets. Millions of people want to travel to space, and usually that dream dies with them. Get a life insurance quote with loveMONEY. This will be launched into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. (You pay a 50 percent premium on any of Celestis’ flights to mingle two sets of ashes together.). Elysium Space charges people $2,490 to send their loved one's ashes into space. The capsule containing the ashes will orbit the Earth for two years before re-entering the atmosphere "as as shooting star". For just $995, you can send bits of Uncle Ralph on a suborbital flight like the one Alan Shepard, the first American in space, took in 1961. Got a confidential news tip? Just keep in mind that the prices for the flight don’t include the cremation itself. San Francisco-based Elysium Space describes itself as a "memorial spaceflight" company made of ex-NASA personnel and funeral experts. © 2021 CNBC LLC. Not a bad final view. Civeit is bootstrapping the company and works with four part-time consultants, including engineers and an anthropologist, although he’s also in the process of raising a small round of funding. The company plans to launch its clients’ cremains on a CubeSat, a standardized 4-by-4-by-4-inch box designed to put student projects into space as “secondary payloads,” tagging along with bigger, more sophisticated experiments or commercial satellites without taking up too much extra room. Dr Chris Rose, Ascension Flights. They offer a courier service for the UK, Europe and the rest of the World and with their guidance you should find the whole process, including the completion of relevant documentation, fairly simple. Roddenberry and Leary were in space for five years before they re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. They […] Have A Space Burial As Elysium Sends Your Ashes Into … With Stardust Ashes you can send a lightweight urn 10,000 feet in the air on an environmentally friendly balloon which will float around the stratosphere. Space burial is the launching of samples of cremated remains into space. So far,” he says, “we’re the only ones who have been able to do it successfully.” He thinks it’s only a matter of time, though, before someone else makes it work. ... SpaceX partnered with private company Celestis, which specializes on sending ashes into space. HELPING TO CELEBRATE THE LIFE OF A LOVED ONE OR FRIEND WITH FIREWORKS. Not counting the test tubes, each squid cost $1.60 to $7.59 to send up into space. SAP co-CEOs on taking over the reins from Bill McDermott, Indian ride-hailing firm Ola expands to Australia to take on Uber, Uber rival Ola buys Foodpanda’s India business from Delivery Hero. It’s kind of like visiting a cemetery via webcam, except the gravestone isn’t visible in the first place, and it will be gone before long. Elysium clients will go into a relatively low orbit and come down after a year or so. However, the cost of these begins at $12,500 per gram. You’ve run out of free articles. “It’s much too small,” Civeit admits. Join Slate Plus to continue reading, and you’ll get unlimited access to all our work—and support Slate’s independent journalism. You can send ashes into space for just £345. But if you want achieve postmortem orbit at the lowest possible cost, Elysium appears to be the way to go. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Send your ashes into space: the cost of doing something different with your remains If you don't fancy a traditional funeral, there are all sorts of exotic things you can do with your remains. You can send your loved one’s ashes into space on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket for $2,500 Elysium Space charges people $2,490 to send their loved one’s ashes into space. “It’s 60 percent cheaper than the existing space-burial options,” he says. By joining Slate Plus you support our work and get exclusive content. Similar to the service above, a portion of ashes are put into a large display rocket. Civeit is the founder of Elysium Space, purveyor of what the company calls “dignified memorial spaceflight.” It’ll shoot your “cremains” (funeral directorspeak for “ashes”) up to join the communications satellites, spy satellites, and thousands of other artificial bits and pieces that circle the Earth. Humans are surprisingly creative when it comes to finding ways to celebrate the dead. Celestis will send a "symbolic portion" of cremated ashes into space at costs ranging from $695 for a single orbit to $2,500-$37,500 for a one-way trip into continuous orbit or deep space. At a typical cost of $10,000 per pound to send a payload into space, that would be prohibitively expensive for most funeral shoppers, so, he says, “we’ll send up a … Established in 2013, Elysium Space — named after the state of perpetual happiness in Greek mythology (and not after the eponymous Matt Damon movie) — is offering to send people’s ashes to space … We’re helping lead the way toward democratization of access to space.” Given that it costs $20 million to get into space if you’re alive, however—a figure that will drop to a still-exorbitant $250,000 if Virgin Galactic’s spaceship ever gets off the ground—dying is probably the only way most of us will ever be able to go into orbit. Credit: public domain. Sending your ashes into space can cost less than you think. If all goes well, Civeit says, the first launch could come early next year, bearing the ashes of up to 100 of the dear departed. The company has successfully completed 15 launches already, sending the ashes of celebrities like Star Trek “Scotty” actor James Doohan and scientist Eugene Shoemaker into space … Part of the show Trick or Treat: The Science of the Paranormal. Companies like Celestis offer a range of experiences, from an Earth Rise service that takes someone's ashes into space and brings them back, to Earth orbit and deep space options. Fireworks. The ashes go up, spend two minutes and 40 seconds in outer space, then come down again, to be sent back to the bereaved. Burial in space can be extremely costly and so only a relative few have found their final resting places there so far. The dream of spaceflight Is now a reality for all of us. Play Download. “Studies show that between 1 and 6 percent of people who elect cremation would consider space burial,” Chafer says. Each customer who signs up will receive a kit containing a custom ash capsule to collect the cremated remains of their loved one. Slate relies on advertising to support our journalism. “But it’s a big challenge to merge funeral and aerospace, which are two very conservative industries. We want to hear from you. While the cremains will achieve true Earth orbit, they won’t stay up long. Each reservation starts at $2,490. A British company will begin sending ashes of loved ones who have passed on into space to be scattered starting in November. You won’t be able to see the satellite while it’s in space, though. Description. You can cancel anytime. If you really want to save money on sending your loved one’s ashes into space, Celestis has an option that’s even less expensive than what Elysium offers. Ascension Flights The launch date is in the hands of SpaceX Civeit said and there is no time set as of yet. So far the company has 100 participants booked. 31 October 2017. The package costs between £795 ($1,036) and £1895 ($2,470), which includes videos and photos of the ashes being launched into the cosmos. Another is by going up aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Or part of them can, anyway. A Division of NBCUniversal. We are taking symbolic portions loved ones of ashes to space. Civeit expects to pack 100 or so customers into each CubeSat, which is one way he’ll save money. Interview with . However, the cost of these begins at $12,500 per gram. The business aims to "change the vision of death from the underground to the celestial.". If you want the full orbital experience from Celestis, the price goes up to nearly $5,000. The only catch is, you have to be dead. For example, just 1 gram (0.035 oz) of a person’s ashes launched into deep space costs approximately $12,500 US Dollars (USD). Gene Roddenberry will be doing that, too, says Chafer. “If we’re correct about the global market, it’s potentially as big as the market for having your ashes scattered at sea.” Which, when you think about it, is not all that different, although it sounds a lot less nutty. A good sounding rocket could probably put a kilogram or so above the atmosphere briefly, but then it would come back down. The Shooting Star Memorial is an exceptional way to honor the life of someone you love. In this handout provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lift off from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for their eighth official Commercial Resupply (CRS) mission on April 8, 2016 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Celestis clients also go as secondary payloads in most cases). A ceremonial portion of ashes are flown into space on one of our bespoke spacecraft, returned to Earth and passed into the care of the deceased's loved ones. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Celebrate an incredible final journey with a beautiful, personalised video memorial showing the ascent and release of the ashes into space. (Celestis, it should be noted, does offer an “Earth Rise” service, which will send your ashes up into space on a 15-minute trip that costs $995.) If you value our work, please disable your ad blocker. The Houston-based firm Celestis, Inc. has been launching human ashes into space since 1997. "For about 2 years, our memorial spacecraft will respectfully and peacefully orbit the Earth," Elysium Space CEO Thomas Civeit, told CNBC by email on Tuesday. We can help keep that dream alive with a space burial service. All rights reserved. SpaceX Will Take Your Ashes to Space for $2,490. So you can expect to spend between $1,000 and $5,300 to carry your ashes into space, or between $10,000 and $45,000 to transport them all of the way to the moon’s surface. Ashes in rockets. “Cremation leaves about six pounds of ashes,” says Civeit, a former NASA engineer who founded the company earlier this year. You light the rocket which will fly with a whoosh to several hundred feet where it bangs into a pretty effect, spreading the ashes. “They currently have the cheapest flights,” he says. Sending ashes into space; Sending ashes into space. Elysium Space is planning to send the ashes of those who have recently died into space on one of Elon Musk's SpaceX rockets. Apart from orbital flights, the company also facilitates the voyages of ashes into deep space. But Elysium is creating a mobile app so you can track where it is at any time. His widow, Majel Roddenberry, let Celestis send her husband on the 1997 flight as long as the company promised to put both of them on the first interplanetary mission. Apart from orbital flights, the company also facilitates the voyages of ashes into deep space. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis. It depends on whether you want them to stay there. However, for the ‘cremains’ to enter orbit, the rocket company first has to deal with what Elon Musk, the SpaceX founder, has called “our most difficult launch ever.” This is more spectacular than a barrage but much shorter in duration. The ashes will be contained in a satellite, circle the … The whole service costs £3,500. A satellite carrying the ashes of about 100 people is about to be launched into space, the first ever dedicated memorial spacecraft. The Memorial Launch can be booked for a departed loved one, or you can secure your own Memorial Launch and ensure your wishes will be carried out.. Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services. This is then sent back to Elysium Space and is placed in the company's spacecraft. You can send your loved one's ashes into space on Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket for $2,500. The Voyager service is a true mission of exploration, sending the Celestis spacecraft carrying cremated remains or DNA on a permanent celestial journey, well beyond the Moon. Its inaugural flight carried the remains of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry. All contents © 2021 The Slate Group LLC. The Memorial Launch is conducted from our dedicated site in the countryside outside Sheffield, UK. With this option, which costs $2,495, Celestis will retrieve the capsule of ashes and return it to the pet's owner as a keepsake. At a typical cost of $10,000 per pound to send a payload into space, that would be prohibitively expensive for most funeral shoppers, so, he says, “we’ll send up a symbolic portion, maybe a gram.” That’ll cost you $1,990 (plus tax and shipping, as the company makes clear when you click the “add to cart” button on the Elysium website).