Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl!watsnew!mark
From: mark@watsnew.waterloo.edu (Mark Earnshaw)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: proposed "space-mail" incentive
Summary: Cremation ash in space
Keywords: space, burial, ash, junk, orbit
Message-ID: <12790@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Date: 22 Dec 89 14:08:56 GMT
References: <5711@ncar.ucar.edu> <330@hermix.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@watcgl.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: mark@watsnew.waterloo.edu (Mark Earnshaw)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 24

In article <330@hermix.UUCP> jay@hermix.UUCP (Jay Skeer) writes:
>Some "space mail" proposals:
>
>A) one way
>  1) Burial.
>As a currently offered service Burial, or ash disposal is lucrative.  What
>about Burial in space?  At $2000/lb (Current rates?) disposal of ash (I guess
>about 2.5 lbs worth) is rather expensive ($5000) but I bet there would be
>buyers.  At $200/lb disposal of ash is more reasonable ($500), of a body it is
>still extravagant ($40000).  At $20/lb disposal of ash is probably
>competitive with current dumping at sea or in the air ($50); and disposal of a
>body at $20/lb ($4000) would be more competitive with other funeral services.

Where exactly would this ash end up?  We already have lots of junk in earth
orbit without putting more up there.  I suppose you could either dump it in the
upper atmosphere where it would disperse fairly quickly (of course, it might
destroy the ozone layer :-) ) or fire it out of orbit.  In the latter case, you
still have to make sure that it's going to land somewhere so that we don't have
all these commemorative urns flying around the solar system with unknown
trajectories.

--
Mark Earnshaw, Systems Design Engineering      {uunet,utai}!watmath!watsnew!mark
University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada        mark@watsnew.waterloo.{edu,cdn}