Navajo Nation, saying it’s a ‘sacred’ place, up in arms after private company sends cremated remains to the moon ~ January 12, 2024

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Editor’s Note: Many thanks to reader M. for sending in this share! Added comments follow:

I guess the Undertakers are offering an experience “Out of this World Service” now! Can you imagine the advertising for this!  Song at service could be ” Closer my God to thee”,  or a new one “Up from the Earth ( he or she) arose”!  Ashes to ashes, moon dust to moon dust, if you had listened to your doctor you might still be here with us!   Brings a fact to mind, you will never hear “see what you can dig up on him or her”. 

Hope your weekend turns out better than we have had this week. It is coming again. 

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Next Tues night here – Wed Morning here -12 degrees- looking forward to that, and this afternoon is going to be fun too.  It has been so dry here we had fish 3 months old that didn’t know how to swim. Now we’re trying to drown them! 

The Navajo Nation is condemning a Houston company’s plans to send cremated remains to the moon, claiming it’s “tantamount to desecration of this sacred space.”

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren would like to delay Monday’s launch as it includes a lunar lander that’s carrying cremated remains collected by Houston-based Celestis and San Francisco-based Elysium Space.

“It is crucial to emphasize that the moon holds a sacred position in many indigenous cultures, including ours,” Nygren wrote in a Dec. 21 letter sent to NASA and the Department of Transportation. “We view it as a part of our spiritual heritage, an object of reverence and respect.”

Celestis’ CEO and co-founder Charles M. Chafer said the company’s clients consider the mission “an appropriate celebration — the polar opposite of desecration.”

He also said religion is not considered when approving space missions.

“No one, and no religion, owns the moon,” Chafer said in a statement, “and were the beliefs of the world’s multitude of religions considered it’s quite likely that no missions would ever be approved. Simply we do not and never have let religious beliefs dictate humanity’s space efforts — there is not and should not be a religious test.”