The Atlantic

Ashes to Ashes, Stardust to Stardust

Delivering cremated remains to the stratosphere joins a growing list of new ways to memorialize the dead.
Source: JSC / NASA

Mark Harris says funeral directors talk about it all the time. More and more people are growing tired of traditional funeral services and opting for something a little more creative. “It’s getting more difficult to offer the cookie-cutter send-off,” explains Harris, the author of Grave Matters, which examines how people have started to think, er, outside the box about death.

And so, Harris wasn’t surprised to hear that a new British company is offering to send cremated remains to the stratosphere. High-altitude on its website. “We are all made of stardust.” The stratosphere is not technically space, but for their purposes, it’s close enough.

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