SF Startup Wants To Blast Your Loved One's Ashes To The Moon
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A Bay Area company is teaming up with a lunar logistics company to honor departed family members by sending their ashes to the moon.
Founded in 2013, San Francisco-based Elysium Space describes itself as "a unique team of space and funeral experts, combining experience from major NASA space missions and deep-rooted funeral profession knowledge."
The first Lunar Memorial, as it's called, will be for the mother of Steven Jenks, a US Army Infantry Soldier from Tennessee, who when deployed in Iraq, would receive letters from her signed, "I love you to the Moon and back."
Following her death from lung cancer, Jenks approached Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology with the request to send her ashes to the moon as a unique way for keeping her memory alive.
The service costs $11,950, or $9,950 for the first 50 participants, and consists of placing a family member's remains into personalized capsules. It will then be delivered to the moon's surface by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic's Griffin lander, which will hitch a ride on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
"Offering this exceptional tribute within the reach of most families is an important part of this new chapter opening for our civilization," Thomas Civeit, founder and CEO of Elysium Space, said in a press release.
The companies tell Wired they get permission to land ashes on the moon from Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
Elysium Space already offers a Milky Way and Shooting Star Memorial option, which sends ashes into a brief orbit before returning to Earth as a bright streak across the atmosphere.
Nicole Jones is a digital producer for CBS San Francisco. Follow her musings @nicjonestweets
