Dust to Dust

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 12, 2000

For those who think that burial in any old graveyard is just too common -- or that having one's ashes tossed into the air from a mountaintop is just too, too passe for words -- Houston-based Celestis Inc. can solve your problem.

Celestis now offers its customers the opportunity to send their ashes to the moon. And why not? The company already has sent the remains of 100 people into orbit around the Earth, according to a dispatch from Reuters.

Now Celestis offers the lunar surface as a place of last repose. The first to take advantage of the offer will be Mareta West, the geologist who chose the site for the Apollo 11 moon landing back in 1969 and died two years ago.

In a year or so, two grams of West's ashes will be sent to the moon, according to company officials. Celestis Inc. is paying for West's lunar burial but offers anyone who can cough up $12,500 for the ride a similar lunar internment. The price, noted Celestis President Chan Tysor, is "not completely out of line with what people might spend on a traditional funeral."

True enough, but for the people suspects that visits to the gravesite will cost a pretty penny indeed.