StardustME celebrates first memorial flight to the stars aboard Falcon 9 rocket
Aboard Falcon 9 rocket's 199th mission to space was the first payload of New Zealand-based company StardustME. The company specializes in organizing memorial flights of people's ashes into space.
Falcon 9's payload included mostly Starlink satellites, but also the ION Satellite Carrier by Italian-based company D-Orbit. The carrier had four payloads onboard, including the ashes of five New Zealanders.
StartdustME promises affordable memorial flights to the stars and beyond on its website. Flights start at $2995 New Zealand Dollar, which is about $1912 US Dollar and €1762 Euro.
The company uses "purpose-built capsules" to store 1g of the ashes of a person. Each capsule is prepared individually and may contain up to 18 characters in two lines of laser engraved text. The company has partnered with the Space Institue at Auckland University to "use the strictest safety and security measures" and ensure "that ashes are treated with utmost care and attention".
The capsules are placed as payloads into SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets and released to space once the rocket reaches its destination in low-earth orbit. Capsules will orbit earth for about 5 years, according to the description on the website.
They are "mounted in a state-of-the-art satellite" and may be observed on the night sky in real-time.
The system supports notifications that inform people on earth when the satellite that is carrying the ashes is passing over a specific location on earth. The capsules stay in orbit for around 5 years before they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.
StardustME's explains the entire process on a how it works webpage. Ashes are sent to the company by funeral homes. The token ist tested by the Aukland University Space Institute and prepared individually with an engraving. The components that are used have been engineered for space environment. They meet SpaceX's requirements and have also been used in the past by NASA.
The capsules will be aboard a Falcon 9 rocket that is either launching from Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg. After successful deployment in space, details "attesting the success of the launch" are provided. Details include the "official spacecraft tracking ID assigned by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)".
A scam just like SpaceX’s fakes (rockets landing are takeoff videos played back in reverse LOL) and NASA.
Anyone who falls for this BS deserves to get fleeced.
This kind of outrageous luxury should be banned while billions of people and animals are still starving.
Falcon 9 is one thing, StardustME another. ME who? My ashes, promised to be “treated with utmost care and attention” within “the strictest safety and security measures”.
If I smile at venerated human ashes I have to explain why.
In my view the body is only sacred because of the life that animates it. Once the vital breath has been lost forever, a body is nothing but meat, that of a calf as well as that of a human.
It is one thing to respect the memory of the deceased, a beautiful thing, but it is quite another to slumber over meat between four planks. And another to send ashes to space.
Either life after life exists, or it does not; in both cases the living being is no longer there but nowhere or elsewhere, in this elsewhere where the queen as well as the tramp is only a spirit freed from all social contingency.
“Flights start at $2995 New Zealand Dollar, which is about $1912 US Dollar and €1762 Euro.”
Spare that money to bring comfort to those who suffer, not to offer a journey into space to your ashes which have of you but their source.