Maybe you’re an astronaut wannabe, someone whose dream has always been to fly into outer space. 

Maybe you want to do more than ride in a spaceship. You want to jog on the moon, Jupiter, Venus, or Mars.

But maybe, just maybe, time traveled faster than you ever dreamed, too fast to make those goals happen.

Don’t worry. You can go—when you’re dead.

But you need to make your “travel” plans sooner rather than later and have saved a whole lotta cash. 

Dead, you ask? 

Yes, dead, as in no longer walking, talking, and breathing here on Earth. Oh, and there is one additional stipulation: your remains must be cremated.

Then, and only then, can you—your ashes to be specific—fly into space. 

You can arrange to have your cremated remains launched into the cosmos—for a price. The cost ranges between $3500.00 and $13,000.00, depending on the type of service you choose for your final sendoff. 

Starting at the basement bargain price of $3500.00, you can find flights that allow your remains to experience zero gravity. They’re flown into space and then back to Earth. 

Or—for $5000—you could choose to have your remains orbit the Earth in a spacecraft.

On the downside, either of those choices leaves your breathing self an additional and difficult decision to make. What to do with the ashes after they return from such an amazing space odyssey?  What final resting place could top experiencing zero-gravity or orbiting the Earth?

If making difficult decisions is not your thing, up your budget to say $12,500.00 or $13,000.00. That kind of cash opens the door to a couple of otherworldly options.

1. It will pay for the Moon to be the final resting place for your ashes.
2. Or you can choose for your cremated remains to be sent on a permanent celestial voyage into deep space and the solar system.

There are really and truly companies that provide these kinds of journeys for cremated remains. Look them up.

If I were interested in this kind of star-studded send-off—I assure you I am not, but if I were—I would ask for proof before I swiped my card. 

“How will you verify my ashes have experienced zero-gravity, orbited the Earth, are on the moon, or are soaring around deep space?”

There’s no way they could prove any of the above to me. By the time the space death-odyssey company could provide evidence of my astronomic trip, I would be but a pile of ashes.  

I suppose the company would have to swear to my alive self that it would give my relatives airtight proof that my wishes were observed. On the other hand, if my loved ones didn’t pay for the service, I doubt they would care all that much.

We could ask Eugene Shoemaker if he thinks his ashes are really on the moon. But wait, we can’t. He’s dead. 

While people have had their ashes sent to the moon using private companies, Shoemaker was the first and only person to date to have his ashes purposefully buried on the moon. His cremated remains were launched into space in 1998 with NASA’s Lunar Prospector. 

Shoemaker was the founder of astrogeology. His cremated remains experienced the zenith of interstellar travel on the Mercedes-Benz of spaceships to honor his work on impact craters.

Good for him, but not for me. I’m not an astronaut wannabe. 

The closest my remains might get to space travel is if Gary has a portion of me launched in a firework. I like fireworks, but I’m not too sure I’d want to be a firework.

I’ll think I’ll keep my final wishes down to Earth. My soul won’t give a hoot about where my ashes wind up.