An engineer who devoted 44 years of his life to space launches from the Soviet-era Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will become the first Russian whose cremated remains will be delivered into orbit by a Russian spacecraft, Interfax reported Tuesday.
Vitaly Fyodorov, who was involved in more than 100 launches, including the Buran program for the Soviet space shuttle, will finally reach space himself in August by means of a Soyuz rocket, Interfax said, citing a statement by the Museum of World Burial Culture in Novosibirsk.
Moskovsky Komsomolets said the funeral urn would spend several days in space before burning up upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
News reports did not give Fyodorov's age or cause of death.
Fyodorov will be the second Russian to get a space burial. The first was military officer Boris Yakushin, who tested nuclear missiles. His cremated remains were launched into space by a U.S. company in 2004.
Russian space enterprises do not offer space burials on a regular basis, but the U.S.-based firm Celestis, an affiliate of the Space Services company, has been sending cremated remains into space since 1997, Wired magazine wrote in 2006.
The prices at Celestis, which sent into space the remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and writer and LSD activist Timothy Leary, begin at a modest $695. The priciest offer is to send 14 grams of cremated remains into deep space for $37,500.
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