Watching films like Gravity or 2001: A Space Odyssey, we see these terrors concretized as our heroes float, umbilical cords severed, toward a silent yet violent demise. The darkness of space has provided a vehicle for our thanatophobic anxieties-eliciting the endlessness, loneliness, and detachment of death-while dying astronauts have been reified in pop culture as symbols of human corporeality and fragility. Historically, black holes, hurtling comets, and solar flares have haunted our cultural imagination. The rise of commercial space travel has not just revolutionized the practicalities of space flight it has also shaped the way we view space itself. Companies like Beyond Burials, Celestis, and Elysium Space bring that reality to you now, with two minor caveats: you will be dead, and “you” will only be a ceremonial portion of you, somewhere between a toe and an ear’s worth. As the likes of Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos have propelled their rich friends to space, they have also espoused a vision of the future in which space travel is accessible to everyone. In fact, the company claims to have grown by 60 percent every year for the past four years. On a practical level, Celestis has been able to rapidly expand its operations by relying on companies like SpaceX to increase the frequency of launches. Space burials have benefited from this cultural shift, in tandem with the rise of privatized space travel. Now that most Americans favor cremation over burials, they are presented with new options for preserving their remains: becoming a vinyl record, or a “diamond,” or even being sealed up in their partner’s sex toy. However, as Charles Chafer, cofounder of Celestis, concisely put it to me, this remains a small and uncompetitive field because “space is hard.”Ĭonducting a space burial involves marrying two industries-funerals and aerospace-that have become increasingly liberalized in the maelstrom of free-market capitalism. For instance, the UK-based company Aura Flights deploys Hydrogen balloons to carry ashes into space. In the past twenty years, various competitors have emerged offering alternative services and methods. Starting at $2,995, customers can send one gram of their remains into space, while loved ones are invited to spectate their final mission from a “preferred location.” Choosing from a selection of different package deals, these relatives can further customize their experience with keepsakes or memorial events, from astronaut dinners to local tours. Their business model relies on renting commercial space on existing interstellar voyages, rather than chartering their own flights. Responsible for the first-ever space memorial flight in 1997, they have launched the remains of LSD pioneer Timothy Leary, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and physicist Gerard O’Neill into space. Whereas I imagine space as an isolating oblivion, not unlike death itself, Celestis framed their burials as a shot at immortality, realized among the stars.Ĭelestis has very much determined the blueprint for space burials. Sitting in the florally furnished funeral parlor, I was presented with three space burial options courtesy of the company Celestis: sending her into orbit sending her to the moon or purchasing the deluxe Voyager Package, which would send her on a “permanent celestial journey, way beyond the moon.” As one of the most terrestrial people I have ever known-she possessed not only a reluctance to fly but also a general aversion to leaving her seat-I struggled to envisage my grandmother above the ether, or to emotionally connect with such a remote sendoff. The death of my grandma wasn’t funny until I thought about sending her into space.
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