As a teenager, Michael Clive remembers taking the long train ride with his father from their home in Maryland to Virginia, to attend their first Mars Society meeting. Michael recalls watching his father talk excitedly with other space enthusiasts about the possibility of a future mission to Mars.
In death, his father, Alan, will be closer to his dream of a celestial voyage than ever before, said his son, now 39 and a resident of Castro Valley in Alameda County.
Alan’s remains will be on board the inaugural launch of the highly anticipated Vulcan Centaur rocket, which will take off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 24. On board United Launch Alliance’s rocket will be the remains and DNA samples of 338 people, including some members of the original “Star Trek” TV series.
“He always figured out a way to exceed his own limitations,” Clive said of his father. He said he was happy to help his dad achieve his dream by securing a space for his remains on the Tranquility flight.
The memorial space flights are hallmarks of the Texas-based company Celestis Inc., which began its space flights in 1997. Minuscule capsules, ranging in size “from a lipstick container to about half a watch battery,” attach to commercial space flights with excess capacity, said Celestis’ co-founder and CEO Charles Chafer.
Like Celestis’ first mission, which carried remains from “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, this month’s launch will also include the remains of several people connected to the original TV series — including Nichelle Nichols (who played Lt. Uhura), Jackson DeForest Kelley (who played Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy) and James Doohan (who played Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott).
Costs to rocket a loved one’s remains into space can run up to $12,995 for a lunar landing or deep space launch, according to Celestis’ website.
The Dec. 24 launch is the first time two memorial flights have been attached to the same rocket ship, Chafer said — the Tranquility and the appropriately named Enterprise flight. The rocket will first dispatch a lunar lander to conduct studies of the moon. Seventy capsules containing remains will accompany the lander to the surface of the moon.
“It becomes their ultimate 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 its course, with the spacecraft blasting about 100 million miles into orbit around the sun.
“It will be humanity’s furthest outpost,” Chafer said.
For years, Michael Clive has been waiting to make good on his promise to give his dad a space memorial.
Alan grew up in Detroit but spent much of his adulthood in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. After losing his sight at age 22, Alan became a vocal advocate for disabled victims of disaster, particularly throughout his 23-year career with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Equal Rights. But his true love was always space.
Alan would read his son bedtime stories from science fiction novels, and they frequently 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 fight with prostate cancer, Michael said. Not long after his father’s death, Michael said he was inspired to switch from his career in movie special effects in Hollywood to aerospace. He took adult courses 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 start-ups, including SpaceX, in and around the Los Angeles area.
“That was catalyzed by his death,” Michael said of the role his father’s passing played in his decision to switch careers. “He had no idea that would happen.”
In addition to people’s remains, the Enterprise flight will take digital data, such as original music compositions, into Earth’s orbit. Satellites typically last about five years before the “law of physics, gravity and solar activity bring the spacecraft down into the very edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, where … it basically disintegrates,” Chafer said.
“It’s designed that way so that we don’t create space debris,” he said. “Basically dust to dust.”
While more commercial industries are partnering on flights to space — including pharmaceuticals — Celestis has been selling space memorials for more than 20 years. The Tranquility and Enterprise voyages will be the company’s 19th and 20th flights, Chafer said, and the rate of missions has increased in recent years.
Michael is hoping the launch Dec. 24 will coincide with clear nights and a full moon. He plans to track the coordinates of the rocket and aim his telescope at the night sky when his father’s remains reach their final resting place.
With the pace of space travel, Michael mused about the possibility of 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 — like maybe my daughters or maybe their granddaughter — will just take a ride to the moon one day and actually visit his grave there.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
