A Houston company, Celestis, Inc., met a major milestone on Monday 21 April 1997. At 2:05 p.m. in Madrid, a Pegasus launch vehicle dropped from underneath a Lockheed L1011 aircraft. Moments later, its solid rocket motor ignited, carrying the winged vehicle toward the space frontier. The vehicle carried a primary payload, Spain's MiniSat into orbit.
Also onboard were the remains of some of America's finest space pioneers. People who gave their lives in the pursuit of an open space frontier were finally getting their wish. Their cremated remains were blasted into orbit thanks to the work of Celestis. Their friends and families had waited many years to see their dreams fulfilled.
Among those exceptional Americans honored on this flight were:
In all, 24 space enthusiasts made the flight. More details on these first few "ashtronauts" as the company's customers have been described by others, may be found at their web site at http://www.celestis.com/.
The story of Celestis is typical of the stories of space companies in the United States, and should serve to illustrate many of the difficulties in American commercial space policy. The company was founded in 1983 by a group of funeral home owners in Florida. When the company approached NASA about its plans to fly the cremated remains of Americans into space, they were told that such an activity was an inappropriate use of the scarce resources available for space transportation.
The company began looking elsewhere for launch services. At that time, about the only company in the United States offering a commercial alternative to NASA's monopoly on space transportation was Space Services Inc., of Houston. Until the Celestis satellite was turned down by NASA, every company to which Space Services had offered to sell space transportation had been approached by NASA with a free flight opportunity. NASA had seemed determined to starve Space Services out of existence. In 1985, the two companies reached an agreement whereby Space Services would fly the Celestis customers to a very high orbit in the middle of one of the Van Allen radiation belts, otherwise useless for any spacecraft.
This proposal immediately came under fire from ground-based astronomers who feared that the brightly coated spacecraft orbiting overhead would interfere with their viewing activities. In 1988, Celestis came under attack from the Florida agency which regulates funeral activities. They were told that if they were going to offer funeral services in Florida, they would have to maintain a two-lane road to the funeral site, clearly an impossibility.
After a few years fighting these regulators, the company was sold to a group of former employees of Space Services. By that time, Space Services had been forced out of business by NASA's shenanigans, only to be purchased by a Maryland company on the strength of a last-minute contract award. The new owners of Celestis moved the company to Houston.
Finally, the company has succeeded in placing its first group of customers' ashes into orbit. At long last, space enthusiasts can reach orbit. Of course, with NASA's Citizen in Space program cancelled in spite of the utter blamelessness of Christa McAuliffe for the Challenger accident, no living space enthusiast can hope to fly on an American launch vehicle into orbit. As well, the Russians want about $30 million for the middle seat on a Soyuz flight, which is far beyond the reach of all but a handful of space enthusiasts. With Mir falling apart in orbit, there may be few Soyuz flights in the near future to purchase, in any event.
American space policy certainly needs some attention. There are dozens of companies who are eager to fly passengers into orbit. Some of the web sites of these companies can be found by clicking on their company name in the following list:
Warm congratulations and hearty thanks to those determined space enthusiasts at Celestis, Inc.
