Is a "space funeral" actually possible?

It is said that when a loved one dies, they will turn into a star and continue to accompany you in the sky. Although we all know that this is fiction, we really hope that it really exists.

A company called Elysium Space is making it a reality, and the price is very reasonable, less than 20,000 RMB per person. They put the ashes of a person on a satellite and then use a rocket to send it into Earth orbit.

In fact, Elysium Space is not the first to do this. There is an American company called Celestis that is very familiar with this. From 1997 to 2022, it has carried out 17 missions to send ashes to space, 14 of which successfully sent the payload into the predetermined orbit. Among its "customers" are former NSASA astronauts, astronomers, physicists, rocket experts, explorers, and Rodden Berry, the author of the famous science fiction series "Star Trek".

We know that it is very expensive to send things to space, so how can they do it so cheaply? In fact, it is a game of assembling boxes. Our ashes weigh about two kilograms. They will not launch all of them, but only take a handful and put them in a 10-centimeter square box. Then they will assemble a SpaceX rocket to send it into space. You know, the launch cost of SpaceX's Falcon rocket is very low, with a quote of about $1,400 per kilogram, so carrying these small things is just a matter of convenience, and they ask for a friendly price.

The relatives and friends of the deceased will be invited to watch the rocket launch, and then they can download an app to see where the urn satellite has flown to and when it will fly over their heads. At present, the orbital altitude of Elysium Space Launch is about 550 kilometers. At this altitude, because there is still a very thin atmosphere, the satellite cannot stay there forever. If it does not accelerate, it will fall back in five years. So, the relatives' ashes can only accompany us in the sky for five years. However, when the five years are up, when it falls back, it will turn into a gorgeous meteor shower.

The picture comes from Tuchong.com

How can ashes turn into a meteor shower? So-called meteors are very small celestial bodies that fall to the earth and interact with the air to generate heat and light. If the celestial body is small enough, it will be completely vaporized before falling to the ground. If it is larger, it may hit the ground and become a meteorite. If it is larger, it is a small celestial body hitting the earth, which is dangerous. These are actually the same thing.

If you want to turn ashes into meteor showers, the most important thing is to let the satellite interact with the atmosphere to generate heat and light. This is easy to achieve because the speed of a satellite in low-Earth orbit is more than 7 kilometers per second. When it returns to the atmosphere at this speed, it will basically glow. When I was a child, when I watched the Mir space station fall into the atmosphere, it actually turned into many meteors.

So, I would like to make a suggestion to Elysium Space, which is to make the time of the satellite's return controllable, so that it can fall at a specific location at night. In this way, we can also take a look at the meteor shower that our loved ones have turned into.

I also know some friends in China who are working on satellites. I don’t know if this kind of technology is easy to implement and how much it will cost to implement. If the price is right, I will order a set for myself. Contact me and I will pay the deposit immediately!

This article is a work supported by Science Popularization China Starry Sky Project

Author: Gou Sheng

Reviewer: Zhou Binghong

Produced by: China Association for Science and Technology Department of Science Popularization

Producer: China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Xinghe Culture Media Co., Ltd.