Space funeral services offered by Celestis and Aura Flights will give people a chance to send the remains of their loved once to the skies in an epic final journey. According to CNET's latest report, some people are already availing of the space funeral service. One of them was Steven Schnider, who would often take his wife outside just to look up at the stars a night.
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According to the report, Steven was a space fan; always pointing out everything from comets, satellites, to planets. He would also track the heavenly bodies using an app called Heavens Above.
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"He'd say, 'Do you see it?' It's right there. And it would be the faintest little piece of light going across the sky," recalled Christine.
"He was just so excited about it," she said in the report.
There was a consensus among the family members of Steven, when he was close to death in 2017, that a space burial would be the best way to send him off. They discovered Celestis, a company that offers space funeral services. A portion of Steven's ashes, along with the cremated remains from over 150 other clients of Celestis were sent to space last June. The ashes were flown into the planet's orbit aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, which was launched from Kennedy Space Center located in Florida.
Celestis and Aura Flights will give you a chance to send your loved ones in a space funeral
Celestis is one of the companies that offer a range of experiences, Earth orbit, and deep space options, to Earth Rise service that will deploy someone's ashes into space and then bringing them back. The space funeral costs between $2,500 to $12,500; the average cost of a normal funeral in the United States is around $9,000. High-profile clients including astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry were attracted to the space service. Aura Flights, Elysium Space, and other companies alike are offering the same services.
Charles Chafer, the co-founder and CEO of Celestis, stated that the growing cremation rates and a declining emphasis on religious and cultural traditions helped space memorials to become increasingly popular.
"The notion of, 'Bury me next to my grandfather in the family plot in a church' doesn't work in a mobile society. People look for alternatives," said Chafer.
The ashes sent to space by the Celestis Flights are considered as "secondary payload" since they are deployed to orbit, aboard a spacecraft from commercial providers headed into space for other missions. Celestis has had 16 deployments from locations including the Marshall Islands, the Canary Islands, and Cape Canaveral. There are also five more launches scheduled to take place after the next two years.
"The pace is accelerating as the trends are accelerating," Chafer said.
