Space and Physics
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11
Buckle up dead American presidents, you’re going to space whether you like it or not. The DNA of four past US presidents will be blasted into deep space as part of a symbolic space burial flight alongside a number of high-flying names, who will all have part of their remains placed in special capsules and sent into solar orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.The gesture will be carried out by burial company Celestis, which specializes in sending DNA into deep space to join part of a future human colony, as part of a DNA migration method akin to how species once migrated around the earth.
The DNA that will be present from these flights would be used, according to Celestis, as a method of data storage that would tell the story of America and humans, which future civilizations that settle in deep space could use as biological history books. We’re unsure exactly how these civilizations would locate the floating DNA libraries in the vastness of space, but that’s beside the point.
Alongside all the things we can currently glean from DNA, Celestis hope that future advances will be able to show the entirety of a person from just their DNA, making small amounts of it a vital information storage method for preserving humanity.
That’s why soon, remains of George Washington, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and Dwight D. Eisenhower will join the DNA and cremated remains of many of the people who worked on Star Trek and be blasted into space for evermore. The presidents will be immortalized in pieces of their hair within the capsules, which contain significant amounts of DNA.
The Enterprise Flight is due to launch some time in 2023.
“This flight will indeed go into the history books, and thanks to the DNA presence of historical figures, the Enterprise Flight’s story won’t just end with its entry into a solar orbit,” write Celestis in a blog post.
