'A unique way to honor a loved one': Inside Celestis, the company sending human ashes to space

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Eleven-year-old Matthew Gallagher could have told you about Apollo 11's flight to the moon, the inner workings of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, and nearly everything about the planets – all with the spark of a kid's newly discovered passion.

Parents Cori and Scott Gallagher nurtured that interest with trips from their Lakeland-area home to the Space Coast, giving Matthew opportunities to explore the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and see launch activities from up close. He absorbed the sights and sounds like a sponge.

"He could tell you anything and everything about the launches, missions, Apollo 13, Apollo 11, all the spacecraft, how they all worked," Cori Gallagher told FLORIDA TODAY. "When he got books from school, they had to be space books because he was like, 'I don't want to read anything if it's not a space book.'"

Matthew passed last year, but his journey is far from over. In fact, he still has some 240,000 miles to go before a portion of his ashes touch down on the moon – an Apollo 11 of his own, so to speak.

This year, some of Matthew's ashes will be joined by those of dozens of others on a flight known as "Luna," a mission organized by spaceflight memorial company Celestis. The small samples will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station as part of a larger NASA-backed mission hosted by a lunar lander.

Celestis, though not a household name, has been around for decades as one of the first – and most successful – commercial space companies. From astronauts to celebrities to students, its participants have run the gamut.

The Gallaghers' experience exemplifies what commercial space has become in recent years: lower costs, fewer barriers to entry, and more opportunities. For prices comparable to traditional memorial services, families are able to send their loved ones into the cosmos on a farewell journey that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The experiences include insights into pre-launch processing, meeting with other families whose loved ones are flying on the same mission, and ultimately traveling to Florida for launch day.

And as far as future missions go, Celestis is just getting started.

A way to process grief

When they found Celestis, the Gallaghers almost immediately knew it was the best way to honor their son.

"We knew that we had to find a way to honor him. When we found (Celestis), we knew this is what we had to do for our son. This would fulfill his dream of going to space," Cori Gallagher said.

Since the decision, the Gallaghers have raised more than $16,000 on GoFundMe to pay for the "Luna" service offered by Celestis. The fundraiser remains open for those looking to contribute. His parents preferred to keep Matthew's cause of death private.

Samples will fly with other spacecraft en route to the moon, typically for science purposes like NASA's Artemis program, during two missions – "Tranquility" and "Destiny" – starting this year. The first of those flights, hosted by a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket, is slated to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the first quarter. It will also mark the first launch of the company's new Vulcan rocket.

Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, selected by NASA to help advance research ahead of putting two astronauts on the surface sometime before 2030, is expected to touch down on the northern part of the moon. Among its payloads will be the ashes processed and provided by Celestis.

"The moon was what really spoke to us the most," Cori Gallagher said. "It's constant every night. When we look up at the night sky, we'll know he's up there."

But it's not just about the launch itself; that so many gather with a similar goal of remembering loved ones makes for a new, cutting-edge way of processing grief. Among those is space shuttle astronaut Nicole Stott, who, along with space industry veteran and husband Chris, sent their daughter Eileen's ashes on a Celestis flight.

"There were a number of elements to it that were really attractive to us," Stott told FLORIDA TODAY. "Certainly both Chris and I have this love and passion for space exploration in general. Embedded in that is this understanding of how all we're doing in space is ultimately about improving life on Earth."

"The opportunity to have someone we love, that we never really met (due to a late-term miscarriage), that we were looking forward to welcoming into our lives and sharing that passion we have ... the opportunity to give her that chance to experience it before we ever did was really attractive in so many ways," Stott said.

Eileen's ashes were sent to Earth orbit as part of a "New Frontier" flight that launched on SpaceX's first International Space Station mission in 2012. Though no longer visible because the ashes re-entered Earth's atmosphere about a month later, Stott said a recent trip to the Maldives in the Indian Ocean was a powerful reminder of her daughter.

"Even though I know that piece of her isn't there in space anymore, we treat it like she is," Stott said. "(In the Maldives), there was the darkest, most beautiful, with-your-naked-eye-there's-the-Milky-Way-view I've had in a really, really long time. And I had a flash to it – a flash of this memory of sending her to space and how that felt."

Stott said the grief-processing aspect to Celestis flights – especially spending time around other families on launch day – is almost likely therapy in itself.

"They may not have ever considered the space thing themselves. But as family members, they feel like, "Oh my gosh, we're giving this person we love this gift and helping them close out their lives that way.' And I think that is therapeutic," Stott said.

"It's part of this closure on grief that comes along when you lose somebody."

The Celestis story

In the industry, Celestis is well-known for its unique mission of delivering human ashes to Earth orbit and beyond. The Houston-based company founded in 1994 has since successfully tapped into the powerful, emotionally charged environment of memorial services by flying ashes as secondary payloads on missions.

Since its first launch 25 years ago, more than 1,000 families from dozens of countries have watched as their loved ones' ashes took flight on vehicles ranging from small research-focused rockets to behemoths like SpaceX's triple-core Falcon Heavy. Families who purchase services from the company not only see the launches, but get to become a part of the process through constant updates on the status of payload processing, timelines, and more.

Celestis has also started flying mouth-swab DNA samples alongside ashes, giving the living "the means ... to make a very real journey to space, and even to elect off-planet personal DNA storage."

Ashes belonging to well-known names have taken flight, too. "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry and cast members like James Doohan, who portrayed "Scotty," have flown to space. This year, more of Roddenberry's ashes will join Nichelle Nichols, who played "Uhura," on the company's first deep space mission known as the "Enterprise Flight."

In fact, Celestis' ties to titans of space began with one of the most prominent leaders of the early U.S. space program: Deke Slayton. A member of NASA's original Mercury Seven formed in 1959, heart problems kept Slayton grounded for years, though he did eventually get his shot at spaceflight more than 15 years later on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

Charles Chafer, co-founder and CEO of Celestis, said Slayton was excited about the idea of launching ashes to space, but the industry wasn't mature enough to support the venture when the idea began to take shape in the 1980s. At the time, both he and Slayton were involved in a different effort to get the first privately funded rocket off the ground.

"Deke immediately saw (launching ashes to space) as a wonderful service and was very excited about it," Chafer told FLORIDA TODAY. "We spent about three or four years trying to get to a first flight ... but the launch industry just wasn't mature at that point."

Celestis in its current form would eventually take shape in 1994 and fly its first mission three years later.

Growth of commercial space

Just as today's commercial spaceflight industry is growing, so is Celestis.

"There are a couple things that have made a huge difference in the timeliness of our services," Chafer said. "No. 1 is the fact that you can get to space these days commercially, reasonably, cost-effectively, reliably – and that makes a huge difference."

The company has so far hosted ashes – typically in samples ranging from one to seven grams, but sometimes more – on 18 flights since 1997. More recently, well-known vehicles like SpaceX's Falcon series and United Launch Alliance's upcoming Vulcan Centaur have been tapped to take samples to orbit and, in the near future, the moon.

"The other thing that's happened is that when we were first approached in the '80s, the cremation rate in this country was in the 20 percentage points," Chafer said. "It's now over 50% and well on its way to 80%. And with that, people are making different choices about how they want to be remembered."

"So you have the demographics of the group that's choosing cremation and choosing more personalized memorials combined with the ability to fly, which has made a huge difference for our enterprise," Chafer said.

Commercial space's advancements have not only made Celestis' products feasible, but also its prices. Those unfamiliar with the service might think flying ashes is cost-prohibitive, but prices are more reasonable than what the space industry typically commands: packages start at $2,495 and range up to $12,500. Prices are determined by destination:

• Earth Rise ($2,495): Samples fly to space, descend back to Earth, and are returned to families as keepsakes.

• Earth Orbit ($4,995): Samples are flown to orbit, where they circle Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and burn up as a "shooting star tribute."

• Luna ($12,500): A small Celestis payload delivers samples to the moon's surface.

• Voyager ($12,500): Samples are sent well beyond the moon to deep space.

"Right now, we're about half of an average funeral expense in the U.S. which is up around $9,000 to $10,000," Chafer said. "Even our deep space and lunar missions, which are $12,500, really are priced near the average cost of a funeral."

"I think a lot of people hear what we do and think 'I could never afford that,' but in point of fact, it's within the range that people do spend on memorial and funeral services," he said.

Cost aside, the technical lift for Celestis isn't simple since the samples need to be just as flight-worthy as the primary payloads encapsulated in rocket nose cones. Celestis needs to do more than just deliver a few samples of ashes.

Technicians are ultimately responsible for precious cargo that needs to be handled with respect, but also meet the stringent requirements of spaceflight.

"You've got to show up with an encapsulated system that is vacuum survivable and all the things that make something safe to fly," Chafer said. "We have to do all that."

Bringing it all together

All that work and experience have helped thousands of family members honor their loved ones, including Tampa-area resident Melissa Teston. Her brother, Derek Stephen Yanes, was memorialized last year when a portion of his ashes flew aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the Transporter 5 mission that launched from Cape Canaveral.

An avid space fan, Yanes passed in 2019 at the age of 46.

"He knew every in-and-out and every detail (about space)," Teston said. "So when my children came along and he became an uncle, he passed that knowledge onto them too."

"We wanted to find a way that his name would be remembered and that his life meant something and still means something," Teston said. She eventually found Celestis through a Google search and, after more research, thought "not only would this honor my brother, not only does it give us a sense of closure ... but he would have said, 'This is so freakin' cool.'"

"This just made sense," Teston said.

It was a powerfully helpful process not only for her, but also for her children. Planning the memorial and watching the launch from a private viewing area for Celestis families came together to form a therapy of its own. And because the 230-foot rocket flew Transporter 5 on a unique north-to-south polar orbit, the family got together to learn about the trajectory and other detailed mission parameters.

Together, they witnessed "something that was so amazing that his body would have never been able to do in this lifetime that he was able to do after his passing."

"That was once-in-a-lifetime," Teston said. "And I definitely value very much meeting the other families because it is a unique way to honor a loved one. It's nice to meet others who have the same dreams."

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @EmreKelly.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Inside Celestis, the company sending human ashes to space