A privately owned rocket blasted off for a trial run to the International Space Station yesterday, carrying more than food and supplies for the crew.
Tucked into the rocket’s second stage are the cremated remains of more than 300 hardcore space fans finally making it into the final frontier.
Space Exploration Technologies’ Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 3:44am. The company, also known as SpaceX, replaced a faulty engine valve that triggered a last-second halt to its initial launch attempt on Saturday.
The rocket’s prime cargo is a 4.4m tall capsule called Dragon that is filled with food, clothes and supplies for the six astronauts and cosmonauts living aboard the space station, a US$100 billion project of 15 countries that flies more than 330km above Earth.
Falcon 9 carries a secondary payload as well — a container holding lipstick-tube-sized canisters filled with cremated remains. The deceased include Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, who died in 2004, and actor James Doohan, who portrayed chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott on the original Star Trek television series. Doohan died in 2005.
If all goes as planned, nine -minutes and 49 seconds after liftoff, Dragon’s second stage will separate. It should spend the next year or so circling Earth as an orbital space memorial before it is pulled back into the atmosphere and incinerated.
Houston-based Celestis Inc has arranged for cremated remains to be flown in space 10 times previously, though not all the launches have been successful.
The Earth-orbiting space memorials cost about US$3,000. Celestis also arranges for suborbital flights and launches to the moon. Relatives are invited to attend the launch and then participate in a group memorial service.
The Falcon 9 flight is the firm’s biggest yet, Charles Chafer, chief executive officer of parent company Space Services, wrote on his Facebook page. Ashes from 308 people are aboard, though most are reflights from a failed 2008 launch.
“With my Celestis team,” Chafer posted on his Facebook page on Saturday, as the group gathered to watch the launch attempt. “Ignition, no liftoff ... wow that was close. Try again Tuesday.”
Chafer declined an interview request.
“We made a commitment not to comment publicly until after the mission,” he wrote in an e-mail.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in