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Space Burial
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"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_
I want to burn in the Sun (Score:5, Insightful)
Yay! (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think the company will be allowed to put you into orbit (it would decay anyway), so they will have to punt you out into deep space or let you burn up. For US$11K I don't think that will cover the cost of ejecting you from the earth's gravity.
I wonder if I can work this into my life insurance plan?
Interesting Terminology (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't remember anyone saying Gene Roddenberry was buried in space....I wonder if he was the first person to voluntarily have his remains ejected into space.
I'd go ahead and outlaw this guys (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's to a very fast bankruptcy for these guys.
Long Term Problem... (Score:0, Insightful)
I've always taken comfort that my compost will be used for future generations a millenia from now as I've decomposed and have been sucked up by some plant and eaten by a cow and then either worshiped or eated depending on the part of the world the cow is living at that given time.
Question: how many people will have to be tossed into space, how many resources will have to be tossed into space along with the people to make a difference on the long term resources of our planet?
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Only so much carbon... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the mass on earth question, I wouldn't think the mass we've shot into space is anything to worry about. The earth is big and we aren't to the point where we can cheaply send tons of stuff into space. Even if everyone on earth were to be 'buried' there, it wouldn't cause any significant impact.
As an aside, what's with calling it a space burial anyway? I guess it's better on the marketing than just saying they'll shoot your lifeless body into nothingness where you'll cook on one side and freeze on the other.
Fraud (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cemeteries are landfills (Score:5, Insightful)
Reducing him and many others to the equal of garbage is disrespectful to say the least.
Beats eternity in the freezer (Score:2, Insightful)
The little green men could restore my body from its DNA and using technologies our sci-fi writers haven't even yet come up with, they could search through spacetime and match it up to the stream of consciousness, which corresponds to my own when I was alive.
OK so it's not likely. But then again nor is the prospect of a benevolent future human resurrecting you [salon.com] from your frozen head.
I think the conclusion that we should draw from this is that quite simply the universe doesn't want us to be immortal. The old versions of its component modules need to be deleted and replaced by new releases regularly or it stagnates. But the universe also wants us to want immortality too - that way we strive to achieve the most amazing things within our lifetimes. This, after all, is the only option left to us if we wish to be remembered and therefore achieve the closest thing we can to true immortality.
I know, I know - the topic is space burial not immortality but let's face it - most of the egomaniac
I'll beat that price! (Score:5, Insightful)
For only $10,000 US (deposited in my Swiss bank account before your transistion to the next world), I will...
receive your ashes from the cremation facility,
and...
Give you a multi-colored ink-jet printed certificate that your ashes will be on the next space-shuttle flight and scattered into low-earth orbit. Where they will cause millions of tiny little twinkles that commemorate your life...
and...
Make sure that your ashes (in real life) don't make a big mess in the parking lot behind my apartment.
How about composting? (Score:3, Insightful)
And; No, put in a pine box after being pickeled is not the same!
Temporary Vanity (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I the only one... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do mourners get to sprinkle a bit of space on the "grave"?
Howstuffworks Entry on Space Burials (Score:3, Insightful)
"For the Encounter 2001 mission, Celestis will place cremated remains into personalized flight capsules that can hold approximately one-quarter ounce (7 grams) of ashes. They will then load these capsules into a canister attached to the upper stage engine. The Encounter 2001 will initially travel into Earth's geosynchronous transfer orbit, an orbit primarily used by communications satellites. When the craft reaches the optimal point in its orbit, ground control will send a command to fire the spacecraft's solid-fuel rocket motor, propelling the spacecraft towards Jupiter. About two years later, the tiny spaceship will fly by Jupiter, using the planet's gravity to propel itself outside the solar system."
Given that a typical funeral costs around $7,000 [funeralplan.com], the price doesn't seem too steep. Save a little more, skip the visitation, and get yourself a rocket.
-Oobob
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
This is something which most americans need to ponder seriously. Especially when you consider voting a trigger-happy president such as Bush into office.
If any other country committed such an atrocity against another as the United States did to Japan, we would have World War 3 (it DID cause the cold war, but that's another story). Okay... Japan unsuccessfully attacked a naval base. We nuked two cities without warning, killing thousands.
Not exactly something that deserves +5 funny.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills (Score:2, Insightful)
It would appear that you have never had a friend die. Or if you have, you didn't have too much respect or emotional attachment to that person.
To refer to buried human remains simply as 'garbage' is an unbelievably shallow comment. Yes when it comes down to the bare basics, buried people are dead. They aren't going to earn another pay cheque. They won't be at their desk helping the economy steam on. But that does not mean they are worthless or worthy of being equated to 'garbage'.
Cemeteries are a place for people to return to after losing a loved one. They are a place that helps people overcome grief and loss, by allowing them to return to the resting place of a loved one and pay their final respects. The vary fact that you can be present at the place a friends body is buried can mean a great deal emotionally.
Cemeteries are a way of honouring the dead. Some of us believe that human life is valuable and should be respected, even after death. For some people, cemeteries are the best way for them to do that.
Also cemeteries can serve as a reminder of the past. In a cemetery where one of my friends is buried there are many white crosses marking the graves of soldiers whos bodies were brought home. There is a message there that should never be forgotten.
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Space Pollution (Score:3, Insightful)
or polluting the Sun, conjuring up images of canisters scattered across the solar surface.
Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
More accurately, it kept the Cold War from becoming hot. The Cold War was going to happen regardless of whether we dropped a nuke or Martha Stewart on Hiroshima. The US and the USSR were (are) both ideologically expansionist powers, in that each wanted to see its ideology adopted by the rest of the world. When two expansionist powers come into conflict, there's going to be a cold war and most likely followed by a very hot one. Unless, of course, both sides know that a hot war would be a literal hell on earth, thus giving both sides a strong incentive to not start a hot war.
Did we come close to nuclear war in the Cuba embargo? Damn straight. Why didn't we exchange nukes? Because both sides were reluctant to.
For the first time in the history of the world, we've invented a weapon which has not been used for over fifty years. That has never happened before.
I actually rather like the Bomb. It's a simple, one-question choice: are we as human beings morally developed enough to be allowed to continue existing?
It's a one-question exam, scored pass or fail. So far, humanity has made the right choice. I think that's rather hopeful, myself.
If any other country committed such an atrocity against another as the United States did to Japan, we would have World War 3
I see. So we could either kill 250,000 Japanese (and several thousand Korean slave workers who were in Hiroshima when the Bomb hit, and several thousands of other nationalities, too) in two attacks so terrible, so catastrophic, so Wrath of God, that the Japanese surrendered... or we could go forward with Operation Olympic and kill millions of Japanese and millions of Americans.
After the Nagasaki bomb hit, the Emperor was willing to surrender. Do you know what his aides' response to this was? They tried to murder him so that he wouldn't be able to surrender; and without an Emperor who could sign a surrender, it would've condemned Japan to decades of warfare. That's how hardcore, how serious, the Japanese generals, warmongers and militarists were: they wanted the world to end.
By nuking two cities, the United States forced a surrender.
Was dropping The Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a war crime? I don't know. I genuinely don't know. No matter what arguments you make for it being a war crime, there are powerful and compelling arguments that not dropping The Bomb would have been a greater crime. And no matter what arguments you make in defense of The Bomb, you cannot argue away 250,000-plus people wiped out in an instant, their shadows etched onto the sides of buildings.
I have no answers. I only appreciate the spectacular difficulty of the question. That you have found easy answers strongly suggests to me that you have no appreciation of the question.
In the end, humanity is advanced more by people who have no answers than by people who have answers without understanding the questions.
Re:I prefer this Sweedish method (Score:2, Insightful)
Why don't they just do what I plan to do?
Decompose.
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Under the Geneva Accords, a nation is obligated to conduct war in such a manner as to minimize the depradations, casualties, loss of life and property damage to non-military targets. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were apocalyptic attacks, yes. Olympic would have been worse.
So by that metric--if we had a choice which would have left Hiroshima and Nagasaki as flaming cinders, but the rest of the mainland mostly untouched, or a choice to do a mass invasion which would have left the entire island chain aflame and smoking, it would be a war crime to not choose the atomic option.
In the general case, of course it makes no sense to say "not dropping a nuke is a war crime". It's absurd. Balderdash. Ludicrous insanity.
But in the context of "our options are drop a nuke or else kick off Operation Olympic"... not dropping a nuke (i.e., going the Olympic route) could be viewed as a war crime.
It's a spectacularly difficult question.
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. (Score:3, Insightful)
In the 19th century civilian population centers and industry had become such an important part of a nation's ability to wage war that they were viewed as valid military targets. Some people use this belief as an argument that nuking those cities was okay. That still leaves the question of why we could not have selected a pure military site to nuke - the damage caused would not have been as great, but Japan would have been able to see what sort of weapons we had available.
Panspermia problems? (Score:3, Insightful)
burn in the Sun (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Broadcasting dead... (Score:2, Insightful)
Come to earth and incinerate a few humans for the ashes of course. I can already see the number of abduction stories increasing rapidly