by As a teenager, Michael Clive remembers making the long train ride with his father from his home in Maryland to Virginia, to attend their first Mars Society meeting. Michael remembers watching his father talk excitedly with other space enthusiasts about the possibility of a future mission to Mars.
After his death, his father, Alan, will be closer than ever to his dream of a heavenly journey, said his son, who is now 39 and lives in Castro Valley in Alameda County.
Alan’s remains will be aboard the highly anticipated inaugural launch of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, which will lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on December 24. On board the United Launch Alliance rocket will be the remains and DNA samples of 338 people, ie including some members of the original TV series “Star Trek”.
“He always found a way to go beyond his own limits,” said Clive of his father. He said he was happy to help his dad achieve his dream by finding space for his remains on the Tranquility flight.
The commemorative space flights are hallmarks of the Texas-based company Celestis Inc., which began its space flights in 1997. Miniuscule capsules, ranging in size “from a lipstick container to about half a watch battery,” carry commercial space flights with excess. resource, said Celestis co-founder and CEO Charles Chafer.
Like the first Celestis mission, which carried the remains of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, this month’s launch will include the remains of several people associated with the original TV series — including Nichelle Nichols (who played the Lt. Uhura), Jackson DeForest Kelley (played by Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy) and James Doohan (played by Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott).
Rocketing the remains of a loved one for a moon landing or deep space launch can cost up to $12,995, according to the Celestis website.
The Dec. 24 launch marks the first time two commemorative flights have been attached to the same rocket ship, Chafer said — The Tranquility and the aptly named Enterprise flight. The rocket will launch a lunar lander first to study the moon. Seventy capsules containing remains will accompany the lander to the surface of the moon.
“It’s their final memorial site,” Chafer said. “Everyone on Earth can look up at night on a full moon and see where Grandma is memorialized.”
The rocket will then continue on, with the spacecraft blasting about 100 million miles into orbit around the sun.
“It will be humanity’s longest outpost,” Chafer said.
For years, Michael Clive has been waiting for his promise to give his father a space memorial.
Alan grew up in Detroit but spent much of his adult life in the suburbs of Washington, DC. After losing his sight at age 22, Alan became a vocal advocate for disabled disaster victims, most notably during his 23-year career with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Equal Rights. But his true love was always space.
Alan read his son bedtime stories from science fiction novels, and they often took trips to the National Air and Space Museum, Michael recalled. Their favorite movie was “Apollo 13,” with Michael watching and explaining the scenes to his father.
Alan died in 2008 after a 10-year battle with prostate cancer, Michael said. Shortly after his father’s death, Michael said he was inspired to move from his career in film special effects in Hollywood to aerospace. He took courses for adults at Venice Beach High School to learn how to manufacture aerospace components and design his own rockets. Michael then went on to work at aerospace startups, including SpaceX, in and around the Los Angeles area.
“His death was a catalyst for that,” Michael said of the role his father’s death played in his decision to change careers. “He had no idea that would happen.”
In addition to human remains, the Enterprise flight will take digital data, such as original musical compositions, into Earth orbit. Satellites typically last about five years before “the laws of physics, gravity and solar activity bring the spacecraft down to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, where it basically destroys itself,” Chafer said.
“It’s designed that way so we don’t create space debris,” he said. “Basically dust to dust.”
While more commercial industries are partnering on space flights – including pharmaceuticals – Celestis has been selling space memorabilia for over 20 years. The Tranquility and Enterprise missions will be the company’s 19th and 20th flights, Chafer said, and the rate of missions has increased in recent years.
Michael hopes that the launch on December 24 will coincide with clear nights and a full moon. He plans to track the rocket’s coordinates and point his telescope at the night sky when his father’s remains reach their final resting place.
With the speed of space travel, Michael pondered the possibility that his daughters – 3-year-old Lyra who loves rockets, or 7-month-old Maia, whose middle name is Alan after her grandfather – one day getting a chance to visit. the moon.
“It’s weird to say that, right?” he said. “It’s reasonable to think that someone in my family – maybe my daughters or maybe her granddaughter – will one day take a trip to the moon and visit his grave there.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
