spangler@kvue.UUCP (Lance Spangler) (02/14/85)
Net.space readers might be interested in this item from UPI on
Feb. 12. It deals with SSI's plan to launch the cremated remains of people
into outer space. (It's been rewritten to avoid the copyright problems that
have been mentioned recently.)
(Washington) The government has given the go-ahead to preliminary plans for
America's only private rocket company to carry cremated remains into space in
late 1986 or early 1987.
The Department of Transportation said today it has given tenative
approval for the first commercial proposal to come under the agency's new
licensing authority.
Space Services Incorporated of Houston, Texas wants to use its own
small "Conestoga" rocket to carry the ashes of more than 10-thousand people
into a 19-hundred-mile-high orbit. The container will remain there, in the
Van Allen Radiation Belt for at least 63 million years according to officials
with SSI.
Recently, the DOT was given the authority to oversee commercial space
activities. The department says it issued permission to proceed after
consulting with the State Department, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, and the Department of Defense.
According to company spokesmen, the cost for putting a loved one into
(almost) eternal orbit will be about 39-hundred dollars. The same spokesman
adds that the cost isn't much more than an earthly funeral would cost. Cost
of the cremation isn't included in the launch price.
Reportedly, the first launch will carry the remains of some 200 people.
Earlier news reports had indicated the nosecone of the Conestoga rocket
would be plated with a highly reflective material allowing loved ones on earth
to view their dearly departed pass overhead with the use of a telescope.
The only thing we have to Lance Spangler
fear is computing itself. Senior News Producer
:-) KVUE Television
Austin, Texas
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TELCO 512-459-1433 (Pvt. line to my desk)
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