DNA from four former United States presidents will be going to space. The DNA of dead presidents will be blasted into deep space as part of a symbolic space burial flight alongside a number of other high-flying names.
George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan are off to space.
Parts of their remains will be placed in special capsules and sent into solar orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket.
It will be conducted by Texas-based space 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 remains of Washington, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan are being added to the aerospace firm’s upcoming deep space remembrance Enterprise Flight, along with several deceased “Star Trek” legends and science fiction superstars.
In addition to the cremated remains and DNA samples of Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley, “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, “Star Trek” engineer James “Scotty” Doohan and “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” VFX master Douglas Trumbull and several others, these presidential offerings will launch sometime this year in special capsules inside a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket.
Charles M. Chafer, Co-Founder & CEO of Celestis, Inc., said in the announcement: “The overarching goal of Celestis is to assist human expansion throughout the solar system. By adding the DNA of these American icons to Enterprise, we establish a precursor for future human missions, and add to the historical record of human exploration of deep space.”
Alongside all the things we can currently glean from DNA, Celestis hopes 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.
The Enterprise Flight is due to launch sometime in 2023.
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