Ground Control to Major Fido

A Houston-based aerospace company named Celestis Inc., an affiliate of Space Services Inc., has for years offered memorial space flights for the cremated remains of our dearly departed.

The cost of its services varies: Your run-of-the-mill “Earth Rise Service” brings the remains back to Earth for $995, while the “Voyager Service” starts at $12,500 and promises to launch your loved one’s ashes into deep space. Also available: the “Luna Service,” which sends the remains into lunar orbit.

If that sounds a little flamboyant for your taste, brace yourself. The company announced earlier this week that it will offer similar memorial services for pets. That’s right. For less than a grand, you can give your deceased hamster the ride of its life—after that life has ended.

Celestis is obviously no stranger to bizarre practices. The company is credited with conducting the first and only “lunar burial” in 1999, when it deposited some of geologist Eugene Merle Shoemaker’s ashes on the moon in a capsule bearing the following lines from Romeo and Juliet:

“And, when he shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”