Now, I may be overreacting (many people probably already know about this practice), but I had never heard of this prior to the course when I started to look into burial practices outside the norm. Space burials entail a "symbolic portion" of cremated remains to be launched into Earth's atmosphere, onto the surface of the moon, or into deep space. The clip on http://www.celestis.com/ reveals that the portion of the remains to be taken into space is actually quite small, but I suppose it's more the meaning behind the process anyway.
The cost of this service ranges from $995 (Earth's atmosphere) to $12,500 (deep space); more on this here. Services are performed at the launch site where families can experience what their passed loved ones always dreamed of.
This practice was made all the more intriguing to me in that one of the first few people launched in 1997 was Gene Roddenberry. As a Trekkie I was most excited to learn this. I also find the idea of looking up at the stars at night and knowing that your loved one is somewhere out there, somewhere where they had always dreamed of being, very special and intriguing.
It's definitely an interesting concept! Especially if you think about how far they possibly could have traveled. It would also be interesting to be able to dictate what direction you would go in. Say, if you wanted to go to Mars or way past Pluto.
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