Company Offers 'Burials' in Space
Posted on: Thursday, 19 February 2004, 06:00 CST
Taiwan is one of the most densely populated places in the world, and there's not much more room for new cemeteries. But a U.S. firm is offering a solution: shooting people's remains into space.
The Houston-based Celestis Inc. announced Thursday that it has signed a deal with one of Taiwan's biggest funeral homes, Baushan Enterprise, to provide "space burials" to the Taiwanese.
Robert Tysor, chief executive of Celestis, explained how it works at a contract-signing ceremony in Taipei. He said the ashes are packed into an aluminum tube about the size of a lipstick container. The tube is shot into space on commercial rockets from bases in the United States and Russia, he said.
The tube orbits Earth once every 90 minutes before re-entering Earth's atmosphere and burning up, he said. It can orbit for months or even years, he said.
"It helps one fulfill the instinctive desire to explore space," Tysor said.
Baushan manager Yeh Feng-chiang told reporters, "Whenever the moon rises, you can look up into the sky and remember the deceased."
Space burial costs about 400,000 New Taiwan dollars (US$12,000), about the average price of a burial in Taiwan, Yeh said.
He said people can also send their ashes to the moon's surface for about NT$1 million (US$30,000), he said.
In Asia, Celestis said it began offering the service in Japan two years ago.
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