"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
What is behind the bizarre practice of launching capsules containing
the burnt human remains of celebrities into space? Isn't this
ghoulish practice just a bit beneath the dignity of science?

Why should science and ceremony be mutually exclusive? Especially when the
ceremony is directed related to the science?

And what is so "ghoulish" about a burial? It's not like people are
sprinkling the ashes on their morning toast or something.

And why characterize the effort as being about "celebrities"? There's one
semi-famous guy, and almost a couple hundred people you never heard of.
Shoemaker is probably the next-most-famous guy on board this particular
flight (flights that have been going on for nearly eight years now), and
I'll bet less than 1% of a group of randomly selected people off the street
could tell you who he is.

And finally, just what about this story invokes "science" anyway? It
specifically says the remains will be launched "on-board a commercial
expendable rocket". As near as I can tell, the sole purpose is to get some
stuff into space (ashes of "more than 170 people", plus a spy satellite).

Not that I think it would be bad for a research mission to carry some ashes
along with it, but it doesn't appear that in this case "science" is relevant
except inasmuch as science allowed it to happen in the first place (which is
true of just about every Western burial practice today, to one extent or
another).

The best part is that the stuff in orbit doesn't remain there indefinitely.
Eventually, the orbit decays, and the dead guy becomes a meteorite. A quick
shooting star, and then they are truly "gone". There won't be any people
hundreds of years later getting upset that their burial plot has been
disturbed to make way for a shopping mall, highway, or apartment building.

It's a little more complicated than spreading a person's ashes from an
airplane, but at least you don't have to worry about them all blowing back
in the window!

Oh, I'm sorry...was I being "argumentative" again? Dang.

Pete