new horizons – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "new horizons"

DailyDirt: Beyond The Door, There's Peace I'm Sure…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We’ve mentioned some interesting ways to rest in peace before — turning your body into diamonds or sending your ashes into orbit. It may be a bit morbid, but some space fans really want to get off this planet even after they’ve died. If you want to leave this world (after death), you can get a ticket on more than one kind of spacecraft headed off beyond the Earth.

• A startup called Elysium Space will launch your ashes into space — and even get cremated remains to the moon. The first 50 buyers will get an early bird price of 9,950togotothemoon,andafterthat,it’llsetyouback9,950 to go to the moon, and after that, it’ll set you back 9,950togotothemoon,andafterthat,it’llsetyouback11,950. Just burning up in orbit (aka the Shooting Star option) costs just $1,990. [url]
• The ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the guy who discovered Pluto, are flying out of our solar system into deep space. Tombaugh’s remains (just an ounce) were packed on NASA’s New Horizons probe to investigate Pluto, along with a few other trinkets. That spacecraft is coasting beyond Pluto now, making Tombaugh the human body that’s traveled the farthest. [url]
• The ashes of Gene Roddenberry and his wife — as well as Arthur C. Clarke and James Doohan — were planned to be put into deep space, too. However, the Sunjammer mission was cancelled, so their ride on a solar sail spacecraft might have to wait. Celestis, the company behind this space memorial, has sent some of these ashes into space before, so it’ll probably try again on another mission (or if Sunjammer is revived). [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: arthur c. clarke, ashes, clyde tombaugh, funerals, gene roddenberry, james doohan, memorials, new horizons, pluto, solar sail, space, spacecraft, sunjammer
Companies: celestis, elysium

DailyDirt: Crowds In Spaaaace…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Exploring the vastness of space isn’t cheap, but it’s becoming more accessible as the cost of satellites comes down slowly and data from telescopes is shared widely and freely. Citizen scientists can help advance astronomy in a variety of ways, donating time and/or money to projects that need more help. NASA’s budget isn’t exactly huge (compared to other parts of the national budget), so space scientists need all the help they can get. Here are just a few links on the wisdom of the crowd contributing to space exploration.

• A crowdfunded group of space junkies has revived the International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3) satellite, which launched in 1978 and was officially suspended in 1998. NASA has turned over control of this old satellite to the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, but the group doesn’t have much time to play with the satellite unless it can figure out how to re-fire its engines. [url]
• NASA’s Be a Martian project is asking citizen scientists to help map the surface of Mars. There’s a lot of area to cover with a chance of finding something really, really interesting. [url]
• Citizen astronomers could help identify interesting Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) that the New Horizons spacecraft might investigate. The Ice Hunter project ended in early 2012, and out of the 143 KBO candidates identified, none were in range. (Another Ice Investigators project to look for more KBOs is underway, though.) [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: astronomy, citizen scientists, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, diy space, isee-3, kbo, kuiper belt objects, mars, new horizons, satellite, space exploration, spacecraft
Companies: nasa