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Celestis
Celestis, Inc. is a company that launches cremated human remains into space, a procedure known as a space burial. It is a subsidiary of the private space company Space Services Inc. The company purchases launches as a secondary payload on various launch vehicles, and launches samples of a person's cremated remains. Launching an individual's entire cremated remains (which weigh between four and eight pounds) would be prohibitively expensive for most people, so Celestis launches small portions of 1-7 grams. History Celestis has flown a number of notable participants over the years. Its first flight – ''The Founders Flight'' — carried cremated remains of ''Star Trek'' creator Gene Roddenberry and 1960s icon Timothy Leary into Earth orbit. Also on board were remains of physicist and space visionary Gerard K. O'Neill, noted rocket scientist Krafft A. Ehricke, and 20 others. Dr. Eugene Shoemaker — a famous planetary geologist and co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 †... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Space Burial
Space burial is the launching of human remains into space. Missions may go into orbit around the Earth or to extraterrestrial bodies such as the Moon, or farther into space. Remains are sealed until the spacecraft burns up upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere or they reach their extraterrestrial destinations. Suborbital flights briefly transport them into space then return to Earth where they can be recovered. Small samples of remains are usually launched to minimize the cost of launching mass into space, thereby making such services more affordable. History and typology The concept of launching human remains into space using conventional rockets was proposed by the science fiction author Neil R. Jones in the novella "The Jameson Satellite", which was published in the pulp magazine ''Amazing Stories'' in 1931. It was later proposed as a commercial service in the 1965 movie, ''The Loved One'', and by Richard DeGroot in a ''The Seattle Times'' newspaper article on April 3, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gene Roddenberry
Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter and producer who created the science fiction series and fictional universe ''Star Trek.'' Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, where his father was a police officer. Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions in the United States Army Air Forces, Army Air Forces during World War II and worked as a commercial pilot after the war. Later, he joined the Los Angeles Police Department and began to write for television. As a freelance writer, Roddenberry wrote scripts for ''Highway Patrol (American TV series), Highway Patrol'', ''Have Gun – Will Travel'', and other series, before creating and producing his own television series, ''The Lieutenant.'' In 1964, Roddenberry created the original ''Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek'' series, which premiered in 1966 and ran for three seasons. He then worked on projects including a string of failed televis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
SpaceLoft XL
The SpaceLoft XL is a sounding rocket developed by private spaceflight company UP Aerospace. The rocket is capable of lofting a 79 lb (36 kg) payload to a sub-orbital trajectory with an apogee of about 71.5 miles (115 km). It travels for approximately 60 seconds to cross the Kármán line (the official "edge of space" at 100 km). All launches are sub-orbital and do not complete one orbital revolution. Launches are conducted from the company launch facility at Spaceport America in Upham, New Mexico. Description The rocket is 20 feet (6 m) long and 10 inches (25 cm) in diameter, and consists of a single stage powered by a single solid fuel rocket engine. Typical flights last about 13 minutes, with more than 4 minutes of weightlessness. The rocket is reportedly capable of reaching up to 225 km (140 miles) altitude, though its standard apogee is closer to 115 km (71 miles). Cost and time requirements for SpaceLoft XL launch are demonstrated i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Space Services Inc
Space Services, Inc. of America (SSIA) is a space services company and holding company. The primary subsidiary company, Celestis is for space burials; other activities include operation of an unofficial ' star registry'. Though today it buys secondary payload space on third-party commercial rockets such as Falcon 9, Taurus, and Spaceloft XL, in the 1980s the company conducted test flights of several in-house rockets. In 1982, their Conestoga I rocket became the first privately funded rocket to reach space. In October 1995, their first (and only) attempt at an orbital launch, Conestoga 1620, failed to achieve orbit due to a guidance system failureFurniss, Tim (October 31, 1995).First Conestoga booster explodes after launch, ''Flightglobal.com''. Accessed 1 June 2020 46 seconds into its flight. The parent company, EER Systems, subsequently folded and the Conestoga program was cancelled. History SSIA was founded in 1980 by David Hannah. ''Percheron'' development The company i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Eugene Shoemaker
Eugene Merle Shoemaker (April 28, 1928 – July 18, 1997) was an American geologist. He co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn S. Shoemaker and David H. Levy. This comet hit Jupiter in July 1994: the impact was televised around the world. Shoemaker also studied terrestrial craters, such as Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona, and along with Edward Chao provided the first conclusive evidence of its origin as an impact crater. He was also the first director of the United States Geological Survey's Astrogeology Research Program. He was killed in a car accident while visiting an impact crater site in Australia. After his death, some of his ashes were carried to the Moon with the Lunar Prospector mission. Early life and formal education Shoemaker was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Muriel May (née Scott), a teacher; and George Estel Shoemaker, who worked in farming, business, teaching, and motion pictures. His parents w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Eugene Merle Shoemaker
Eugene Merle Shoemaker (April 28, 1928 – July 18, 1997) was an American geologist. He co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn S. Shoemaker and David H. Levy. This comet hit Jupiter in July 1994: the impact was televised around the world. Shoemaker also studied terrestrial craters, such as Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona, and along with Edward C. T. Chao, Edward Chao provided the first conclusive evidence of its origin as an impact crater. He was also the first director of the United States Geological Survey's Astrogeology Research Program. He was killed in a car accident while visiting an impact crater site in Australia. After his death, some of his ashes were carried to the Moon with the Lunar Prospector mission. Early life and formal education Shoemaker was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Muriel May (née Scott), a teacher; and George Estel Shoemaker, who worked in farming, business, teaching, and motion pictures ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Krafft Ehricke
Krafft Arnold Ehricke (March 24, 1917 – December 11, 1984) was a German rocket-propulsion engineer and advocate for space colonization. Ehricke is a co-designer of the first Centaur liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen upper stage. Biography Born in Berlin, Ehricke believed in the feasibility of space travel from a very young age, influenced by his viewing of the 1929 Fritz Lang film ''Woman in the Moon''. At the age of 12, he formed his own rocket society. He attended the Technische Hochschule in Berlin (today Technische Universität Berlin) and studied celestial mechanics and nuclear physics under physicists including Hans Geiger and Werner Heisenberg, attaining his degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He worked at Peenemünde as a propulsion engineer from 1942 to 1945 with Walter Thiel, then went to the United States with other German rocket scientists and technicians under "Operation Paperclip" in 1947. He worked for a short time with the Von Braun Rocket Team at Huntsville. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from "bold oracle" to "publicity hound". According to poet Allen Ginsberg, he was "a hero of American consciousness", while writer Tom Robbins called him a "brave neuronaut". President Richard Nixon disagreed, calling Leary "the most dangerous man in America". During the 1960s and 1970s, at the height of the counterculture movement, Leary was arrested 36 times. As a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, Leary founded the Harvard Psilocybin Project after a revealing experience with magic mushrooms he had in Mexico in 1960. For two years, he tested psilocybin's therapeutic effects, in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. He also experimented with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which was also legal in the U.S. at the time. Other Harvard faculty que ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Pegasus (rocket)
Pegasus is an Air launch to orbit, air-launched launch vehicle, multistage rocket developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) and later built and launched by Northrop Grumman. Pegasus is the world's first privately developed orbital launch vehicle. Capable of carrying small payloads of up to into low Earth orbit, Pegasus first flew in 1990 and remained active . The vehicle consists of three Solid rocket, solid propellant Multistage rocket, stages and an optional Monopropellant rocket, monopropellant fourth stage. Pegasus is released from its carrier aircraft at approximately using a first stage wing and a tail to provide lift and altitude control while in the atmosphere. The first stage does not have a Thrust vectoring, thrust vector control (TVC) system. History Pegasus was designed by a team led by Antonio Elias. The Pegasus's three Orion solid motors were developed by Hercules Aerospace (later Alliant Techsystems) specifically for the Pegasus launcher but using adv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
1990
Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South Africa, and the Baltic states declaring independence from the Soviet Union during Perestroika. Yugoslavia's communist regime collapses amidst increasing internal tensions and multiparty elections held within its constituent republics result in separatist governments being elected in most of the republics marking the beginning of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Also in this year began the crisis that would lead to the Gulf War in 1991 following the Iraq invasion and the largely internationally unrecognized annexation of Kuwait. This led to Operation Desert Shield being enacted with an international coalition of military forces being built up on the Kuwaiti-Saudi border with demands for Iraq to peacefully withdraw from Kuwait. Also in this year, Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
