Space Burial

Total Recall by amitti · 2004-02-15 13:55 · Score: 1, Funny

For some reason this reminds me of the infomercial from Total Recall.. Their video is funny, very late 80's - 90's..

-Aaron Mitti

Special 'Delivery' Instructions by PakProtector · 2004-02-15 13:56 · Score: 5, Funny

PS: Please aim at the section of space that in the 23rd century will be off limits to all spacefarers, in which resides the Genesis planet. Please make sure to also provide good embalming and a capsule capable of shielding body from cosmic rays.

--

Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"

Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by dupper · 2004-02-15 14:36 · Score: 1

Buried alive... buried alive...
You know what's next.
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by Mad+Man · 2004-02-15 14:55 · Score: 1

re: Special 'Delivery' Instructions

PS: Please aim at the section of space that in the 23rd century will be off limits to all spacefarers, in which resides the Genesis planet. Please make sure to also provide good embalming and a capsule capable of shielding body from cosmic rays.

Screw the Genesis Planet. I want to go to Talos IV before I die.

We've had the technology to build a sleeper ship for the past five years, now.
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:17 · Score: 0

Woah, dude. Seriously, have you EVER even talked to a girl?
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by ralzod · 2004-02-15 15:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Fitting that you bring up Star Trek, since Gene Roddenberry is listed as a Founder's Flight passenger.
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by Professor+Bluebird · 2004-02-15 16:03 · Score: 2, Informative

To save costs, they only launch a few grams of one's cremated ashes, and not whole bodies. As such, being launched alive is currently impossible.
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by dupper · 2004-02-15 16:18 · Score: 1

Sorry, I have to revoke your Geek license:
Reference
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by digitalsushi · 2004-02-15 16:26 · Score: 1

whoa no way!

--
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by DebianRcksLindowsLie · 2004-02-16 02:00 · Score: 1

Couldn't we launch McBride into space alive? I'm sure we could take up a collection...

--
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 02:03 · Score: 1, Funny

Woah, dude. Seriously, have you EVER even talked to a girl?
I have. Then we got married so I don't have to talk to her anymore. I'm in the basement playing computer games at 9am on this lovely President's Day holiday.
Re:Special 'Delivery' Instructions by vanyel · 2004-02-16 10:01 · Score: 1

The embalming point is an interesting one: as I understand it, embalming involves ripping out all the innards and flooding the shell with formaldehyde or something equally toxic. Doesn't sound like a good state for revival, but on the other hand, you need something still left to revive by the time it gets there...

Broadcasting dead... by LostCluster · 2004-02-15 13:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

As a lower cost option, these people allow you to broadcast a digital message which can contain any audio or picture format you want into space.

They call the service Ad Astra. I like the dobule meaning of the word "ad" in that name...

Re:Broadcasting dead... by DarthWiggle · 2004-02-15 14:00 · Score: 5, Funny

so, like, Space Spam?
Re:Broadcasting dead... by calmdude · 2004-02-15 14:06 · Score: 5, Funny

What would one say on one of these things?

A) I'm coming home momma!

B) Please rectally probe the following people who bullied me in school...

C) Please view the accompanying transmitted picture ... does this dress make me look fat?
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Greg@UF · 2004-02-15 14:25 · Score: 5, Funny

I want to say "This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off"

--
-- You can't give it, you can't even buy it, and you just don't get it!
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Veridium · 2004-02-15 14:26 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes, exactly. This will be an excellent way to get aliens to visit us. Once they hear we have penis enlargement pills, breast enlargement pills, and all natural herbal viagra alternatives, they'll be pouring in.

--
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by rhuntley12 · 2004-02-15 14:48 · Score: 1

So not only are we spamming the whole world, we're goign to start spamming the whole universe more then we already are?
Re:Broadcasting dead... by BuckaBooBob · 2004-02-15 14:53 · Score: 1

No mostlikely will be some sort of penis enlargement or some Mail-order University Degree or Atleast some mechanism to "Prevent" These type of transmissions from interfereing with your day :)

--
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
Re:Broadcasting dead... by GigsVT · 2004-02-15 15:05 · Score: 3, Funny

Heh, I once had a ham radio friend of mine with a 1500 watt microwave setup shoot my callsign into space, for the heck of it.

And for even more kicks, you'll be happy to know this message came to you via a satellite in geostationary orbit.

Yes, the 600ms ping time does suck, but at least I can annoy people on IRC by saying, "GREETINGS FROM OUTER SPACE"! :)

--
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by unitron · 2004-02-15 15:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

"The civilisation that blurts out its existence on interstellar beacons at the first opportunity may be like some early hominid descending from the trees and calling "Here Kitty" to a sabre toothed tiger."--Robert Rood
Only in this case it's more like "Klingon want some Viagra?".

--
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:21 · Score: 0

I wonder if some spammer won't find a way to send one last spam before they die...

Actually, it might be the only spam we'd ever care to see from them (but I'd filter it, anyhow)
Re:Broadcasting dead... by nycsubway · 2004-02-15 15:31 · Score: 1

I can do one better than that, for $20.00 and cab fare, I will go to a public access TV station, and broadcast a whole half hour show about you! The signals will be beamed all over space, and your memory will travel the universe until the signal is too weak for someone to receive... or decode.

--
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Re:Broadcasting dead... by sadomikeyism · 2004-02-15 15:55 · Score: 5, Funny

Actually, I can forsee an intergalactic market for human ash pills. Like the chinese penchant for tiger penises and rhino tusks, human ash capsules will be 'herbal viagra'. Considering how much the media act like dick heads all the time, media that is streaming out into space, I am sure the aliens would look at our ash capsules as aphrodesiacs.

--
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
Re:Broadcasting dead... by The+Snowman · 2004-02-15 15:57 · Score: 3, Funny

I wish I hadn't used up all my mod points, that was +1 funny... anyway, who do I talk to about donating my body to science? Seriously, my wife wants to be buried with her family, and I figure science could use my body -- how better to study the effects of alcohol on the human body than to examine my dead body? :-)

--
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Camel+Pilot · 2004-02-15 16:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

Too bad getting getting your DNA sequenced still costs too much.

Would be kinda cool to send the instructions to build youself out into the cosmos. I am sure one could calculate the probability of a significantly advanced live form to intercept your message and build a clone of you just for the heck of it.

Hmmm i think i smell a great plot for sci fi story.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 16:15 · Score: 0

Ofcourse someone would send out a picture of the goatse.cx man or tubgirl, I'm sure those aliens would enjoy probing them and finding out what exactly went wrong.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by aardvarkjoe · 2004-02-15 16:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

Hmmm i think i smell a great plot for sci fi story.

Interestingly, I just read Second Genesis by Donald Moffitt, which is based on a not too dissimilar idea. (Pretty decent afternoon read, if you're into that kind of book.)

--

How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 17:51 · Score: 0

D) As a species, are humans hot or not?
Re:Broadcasting dead... by smchris · 2004-02-15 17:56 · Score: 1

$300 and you could be an amateur radio operator like the young astronomer in Contact and broadcast into space every night. But, I guess, not after you're dead.

Whole thing doesn't appeal to me. I vote for a pyre on the beach at dusk with Iggy Pop rendering a few numbers.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by chills42 · 2004-02-15 18:16 · Score: 1

thats just depressing, i mean who wants to be to e turned into an ash capsule...
Re:Broadcasting dead... by qewl · 2004-02-15 18:20 · Score: 1

What?! You can enlarge your penis with a pill?!

*Removes spam filtering software*

--

(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
Re:Broadcasting dead... by 0x1337 · 2004-02-15 18:35 · Score: 1

...Thank god /me doesn't watch teh television. :-D
Re:Broadcasting dead... by outZider · 2004-02-15 19:50 · Score: 1

Wouldn't it then be Kilrathi?

Sorry.

--
- oZ
// i am here.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by skinfitz · 2004-02-15 19:59 · Score: 1

This will be an excellent way to get aliens to visit us. Once they hear we have penis enlargement pills, breast enlargement pills, and all natural herbal viagra alternatives, they'll be pouring in.

Especially if they like sausages.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 20:46 · Score: 0

Yes, exactly. This will be an excellent way to get aliens to visit us.

Don't you think they'd be more likely to just put us on a blackhole list? (rim shot!)
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 21:20 · Score: 0

Perhaps:

"Am I hot or not?"
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Re:Broadcasting dead... by LegionX · 2004-02-15 22:12 · Score: 0

You could donate your body to that crazy german artist.

You know, Laminated bodies are forever :)
Re:Broadcasting dead... by GORby_ · 2004-02-15 22:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

Hmm, and when the demand exceeds the supply... what do you think they will do ???
Come to earth and incinerate a few humans for the ashes of course. I can already see the number of abduction stories increasing rapidly :-)
Re:Broadcasting dead... by eatdave13 · 2004-02-15 23:52 · Score: 1

Yeah, you can. My dick is 9" long and as thick as my wrist. The ladies are pretty happy with the beanbag effect too, but stuffing them all in there hurt like hell. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're 2 inches erect like I was.

--
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
Re:Broadcasting dead... by mbcx4jrh · 2004-02-16 00:39 · Score: 1

Except for the DNA is not a set of instructions for for building "you" just a human being like "you". (albeit similar).
If one was built and came back , it would be a different person...
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Short+Circuit · 2004-02-16 00:57 · Score: 1

Wasn't it in "Ringworld" where a civilization contacted the Kzin, and the Kzin enslaved them?

--
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 01:31 · Score: 0

prepare to harvest the human lower horn!
Re:Broadcasting dead... by princewally · 2004-02-16 04:05 · Score: 1

Donating your body to science generally means that medical students get to practice autopsies on you. It rarely means that your body is used for research.

--

-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 04:05 · Score: 0

Why would an alien lifeform, construct something with DNA that they knew nothing about?

Oh wait, we already open executable email attachments that we don't know about....
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 05:09 · Score: 0

And just how would they know that the noise you transmitted was a blueprint for DNA? How would they even know what DNA was? Even if their life were based on DNA, maybe their base pairs (G,A,T,C) are slightly different than ours. I think this only works in the movies.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Tarrek · 2004-02-16 09:13 · Score: 1

I'm sure the followers of Dr. Bass would love to have you here at the University of TN in the "body farm" - The largest and most advanced forensics research facility in the country, I believe.

If you're curious, Dr. Bass recently published a book, Death's Acre

The work of this man has essentially single handedly revolutionized the world of forensics- a field previously very, very lacking, based on the story of how he came to start the project: He was called in to take a look at a corpse in a shallow grave, and determined that the time of death was within the last year.. Well, it turns out it was a casualty of the civil war, which means that that estimate was just a *teensy* bit off, to say the least. Frustraited with the lack of research and advanced techniques for the identification of bodies and forensic decay, he started off with a little concrete hut sponsored by the Univ. of TN.. Now, that hut has grown to be a very large, very unpleasant place to accidentally trespass.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Tarrek · 2004-02-16 09:15 · Score: 1

Excuse me, the link I provided was for the audiobook- The hardcover version can be found Here
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Khan+Fused · 2004-02-16 12:30 · Score: 1

Second Genesis was the sequel to "Genesis Quest" - where Moffitt told of the actual sequencing/re-creation of the batch of humans ... and the difficulties when the humans started feeling sentient, started wanting to make their own decisions, and to NOT be treated as short-lived glorified housepets.

--
This mind intentionally left blank.
Re:Broadcasting dead... by Cyberherbalist · 2004-02-16 17:29 · Score: 1

Yes, $299 a pop. Interesting. I could undercut them, being both a programmer and a ham radio operator. And "Naming a Star After You!" ?? Does anyone there have a conscience? Only a certain internation astronomical association can "officially" sanction a star name.

--
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."
Re:Broadcasting dead... by megastar · 2004-02-19 13:45 · Score: 1

I sit dejected now that I've wasted mod points on thoughtful discourse elswhere... next time I'll keep one in reserve for +1 Futurama ref

Take down a space station by Jad+LaFields · 2004-02-15 13:57 · Score: 5, Funny

To much garbage in space? Man that would my point for being 'buried' in space... to become a potentially dangerous piece of space debris! It would be like coming back from the dead to strike fear in the hearts of the living!

--
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!

Re:Take down a space station by LostCluster · 2004-02-15 14:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

This service won't help you with that. The small sample of you that they send will end up vaporized on reentry.
Re:Take down a space station by diersing · 2004-02-15 14:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

Seriously, as a person that doesn't follow such things as closly as others....
How much *space garbage* is there? How much of it will burn up on re-entry (given time)? How much is too large or in too high an orbit?
I would think, considering the size of space we've contributing very little garbage with the most being in some sort of earth orbit. With all the NASA/USSR satellites plus all the now commerical (communications, GPS, etc) we have to have.... what?, a hundred or so devices up there?
Re:Take down a space station by doj8 · 2004-02-15 14:56 · Score: 5, Informative

According to this article (http://www.space.com/spacewatch/space_junk.html):

"A 1999 study estimated there are some 4 million pounds of space junk in low-Earth orbit, just one part of a celestial sea of roughly 110,000 objects larger than 1 centimeter -- each big enough to damage a satellite or space-based telescope."

Of them, "8,927 are man-made objects which are officially tracked."

--
-- Dan Jenkins, Rastech Inc.
Re:Take down a space station by BuckaBooBob · 2004-02-15 15:00 · Score: 2, Funny

Hmm.. Getting 'buried' in a near vacuum... What a concept... Did military intelligence come up with this? or some other Oxymoronish organization? I should sign up for this then in my will leave all my money to attorneys to sue the pants off them for actually just tossing my body into space to drift and leave all the proceeds to the Open Source Community.

--
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
Re:Take down a space station by nastro · 2004-02-15 15:05 · Score: 0, Troll

This makes me think of in Starship Troopers (the movie, alas) when the corpse hits the windshield (or what have you) of the spaceship with a loud THUD! Shit like that just ain't supposed to happen. You, sir, are a troubled individual, or a potential zombie for the next shooting of the Resident Evil movie franchise. Two bad movies in one comment! Ba-ding!
Re:Take down a space station by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:09 · Score: 0

How much *space garbage* is there?

Well, put it this way: Expressed as a percentage, there isn't enough room in the universe to contain all the zeroes to the right of the decimal.
Re:Take down a space station by fireboy1919 · 2004-02-15 15:28 · Score: 2, Funny

I personally plan to become a radioactive monster with poisonous radioactive breath that can only be stopped by trapping it in a ship and sending it into the deep space.

It's a lot cheaper than your plan, and I still get the added bonus of the fear-striking thing.

--
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Re:Take down a space station by fireboy1919 · 2004-02-15 15:32 · Score: 2, Funny

Oh, and by the way, it also leaves me open for coming back in the sequel, where the ship is picked up by some garbage collectors in the distant future and I wreak havoc on a space station 500 years from now before finally being launched into the sun where I am finally and completely destroyed, leaving no hope for another sequel with me in it.

However, the radioactive eggs that I probably laid at the time could end up hatching and once again striking the fear into the hearts of the living.

I got it all worked out. I'm looking forward to my afterlife.

--
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Re:Take down a space station by rayde · 2004-02-15 16:04 · Score: 1

imagine that!! you're piloting a next-gen space shuttle out to land on mars and you suddenly have a human body roll up over your windshield. tell me that doesn't scare the ever living shit out of the guy at the wheel! I wonder if he stops to exchange information.
Re:Take down a space station by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 16:47 · Score: 5, Informative

But then they'll shoot you down with lasers.

http://www.seds.org/pub/info/newsletters/spacevi ew s/text/20000821.txt

NASA to Test Laser "Broom" to Clean Space Junk

NASA plans to test a laser system in 2003 that may help clear
low-Earth orbit of debris that could pose a risk to the shuttle and
space station.

New Scientist magazine reported in its current issue that a
shuttle flight in 2003 will test Project Orion, a groundbased laser
system that would act as a "broom", sweeping out small debris from
orbit.

During the mission the shuttle will release small instrumented
objects designed to simulate space debris. The objects will be
equipped with GPS receivers so that their positions can be tracked as
they are illuminated by a groundbased megawatt-power laser. The laser
will vaporize part of the object's surface, creating a small amount of
thrust that slows the object down and eventually causes it to reenter
the Earth's atmosphere.

If successful, the system could be used to clear out low-Earth
orbit of small pieces of orbital debris that, because of their high
velocities, can cause significant damage if they strike a spacecraft.
"With a laser system we could clear from orbit all the debris between
1 and 10 centimeters [0.4 to 4 inches] in size within two years," said
Jonathan Campbell, head of the Project Orion effort at NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center.

That size range is significant because debris of that size
poses the greatest risk. Shielding on spacecraft can protect them
from objects smaller than 1 cm (0.4 in.), while those larger than 10
cm (4 in.) across can be tracked from the ground and spacecraft moved
to avoid them. Between 1 and 10 cm, though, are objects too small to
be tracked from the ground and too large to be effectively shielded
against.

Campbell and others involved with Project Orion (first
described in SpaceViews in 1997) are optimistic that lasers can clear
low-Earth orbits effectively and at a relatively modest cost. "We now
know we can decelerate and de-orbit the debris with the types of laser
that are available to us," based on a series of recent tests on the
ground, he said.

A two-year effort to clear debris from orbit would cost about
$200 million, Campbell estimated. By comparison, the cost of a single
space shuttle mission has been estimated to be as much as a half-
billion dollars.
Re:Take down a space station by Tarwn · 2004-02-16 02:20 · Score: 1

Yep, definately not going to switch to satelitte tv now :)

--
Whee signature.
Re:Take down a space station by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-17 01:54 · Score: 0

Just like Iron Man :p

Re: story by bentini · 2004-02-15 13:57 · Score: 5, Funny

Quoth the poster: "I want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)"

I know *exactly* how you feel.

I want you to burn in the Sun, too.

burn in hell by kiwirob · 2004-02-15 13:58 · Score: 5, Funny

I want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)
According to my ex-wife I'm gonna burn in hell when I die.

Re:burn in hell by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:18 · Score: 5, Funny

BECAUSE of your ex-wife I'm burning somewhere different altogether...
Re:burn in hell by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:21 · Score: 0

Man, what did she have? Sucks to be you.
Re:burn in hell by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:22 · Score: 5, Funny

According to my ex-wife I'm gonna burn in hell when I die.
You work for "professional search engine optimisation (SEO) company." Hell is too good for you, sir.
Re:burn in hell by DAldredge · 2004-02-15 14:45 · Score: 1

Why whould I go with a company that has ADS on their main page?
Re:burn in hell by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:09 · Score: 0

As opposed to a website that just has 'tmp' on the main page.
Re:burn in hell by kiwirob · 2004-02-15 21:32 · Score: 0

Hey SEO is not that bad is it? At least I'm not a "opt-in" email marketer!!!
Re:burn in hell by DAldredge · 2004-02-16 04:16 · Score: 1

I am not currently selling a product and/or service.

Only so much carbon... by cgranade · 2004-02-15 13:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

Call me crazy, mod me -1, Wrong, whatever. I just wonder about launching stuff into space for no good reason. There's only so much mass on Earth, and what happens if the mass we throw off doesn't come back? I understand what we gain by launching satellites and all, but what does this gain us? I suppose it does have some advantages over the problem of finite room to bury people, but still...

--

#define DRM chmod 000

Re:Only so much carbon... by wowbagger · 2004-02-15 14:01 · Score: 5, Informative

The amount of mass being launched is measured in the hundreds of kilograms per year.

The amount of mass falling onto the earth from space is measured in the hundreds of tons per day.

Do the math.

--
www.eFax.com are spammers
Re:Only so much carbon... by beeplet · 2004-02-15 14:05 · Score: 5, Informative

Considering the earth accumulates 30 million kg of space dust each year, I don't think this will be a problem. (http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news19.html)
Re:Only so much carbon... by Enonu · 2004-02-15 14:07 · Score: 1

To answer your question, according to this article, the Earth gains 40,000 metric tons of mass each year from dust, meteors and whatnot. Have no fear about us feeble humans actually making a dent in mass of the Earth unless somebody hits the big red button.
Re:Only so much carbon... by kfg · 2004-02-15 14:09 · Score: 5, Informative

The earth's mass increases by tons a day, from the influx of space stuff. It doesn't really matter, as a percentage of the earth's mass the stuff that comes in and what we ship out is waaaaaay below the level of significant digits.

I could sit here half the night listing reasons why launching dead granny dust into space is a pretty daft idea, but worries about unbalancing the earth's orbit or running out of carbon wouldn't be among them.

If you took all the people in the world and packed them into a box, like sardines, without cremating, that box would have to be about 3/4 mile per side.

That's it. All of humanity. All of humanity's mass. Poof it out into space and the earth wouldn't so much as bobble, or care.

KFG
Re:Only so much carbon... by brucmack · 2004-02-15 14:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

It doesn't gain anything, it's a business. It's not like they are a group of researchers who have concluded that space 'burial' is better than land burial. They're just there to cater to relatively well-off people who either just like the idea of being a celestial body or are somehow religious and think that they are being 'buried' closer to god.

As for the mass on earth question, I wouldn't think the mass we've shot into space is anything to worry about. The earth is big and we aren't to the point where we can cheaply send tons of stuff into space. Even if everyone on earth were to be 'buried' there, it wouldn't cause any significant impact.

As an aside, what's with calling it a space burial anyway? I guess it's better on the marketing than just saying they'll shoot your lifeless body into nothingness where you'll cook on one side and freeze on the other.
Re:Only so much carbon... by whereiswaldo · 2004-02-15 14:11 · Score: 4, Funny

The amount of mass being launched is measured in the hundreds of kilograms per year.

The amount of mass falling onto the earth from space is measured in the hundreds of tons per day.

What sorts of stuff are we launching and what sorts of stuff is falling onto the Earth? Maybe we're trading titanium for sand. Not that I think we have to worry - just a thought.

Still, maybe launching yourself into space could prevent you from being brought back to life someday. Then again, maybe you'd be brought back to life to fight some losing battle against aliens... ;)
Re:Only so much carbon... by LostCluster · 2004-02-15 14:13 · Score: 1

The mass from their Earthview service, the only one they've actually gotten paying customers up with it seems, actually gets returned to the earth's atmoshphere because the craft vaporizes by design during reentry. "Orbit" doesn't have to be a stable one that stays up forever...
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:15 · Score: 0

dust!
don't tell my mom or she'll start cleaning.
Re:Only so much carbon... by cujo_1111 · 2004-02-15 14:16 · Score: 0

If you took all the people in the world and packed them into a box, like sardines, without cremating, that box would have to be about 3/4 mile per side.

Three quarters of a mile per side? That ain't packing em like sardines, that is compressing them all under massive force into a box.

There a 6 billion people on the planet, they each approximately take up an area say 5 foot by 2 foot by 1 foot. Packing 6 billion people intop a box is going to need a fucking huge box, or finally make a good use of Pamela Anderson...

--
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Re:Only so much carbon... by evilmrhenry · 2004-02-15 14:17 · Score: 5, Informative

(Note: all numbers pulled from Internet in the space of a few minutes. May be inaccurate.)

mass of Earth:
5.9742 x 10^24 kilograms. That's
5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg.

mass of average person:
about 100 kilograms

number of bodies needed to change the Earth's weight by 1%:
597,420,000,000,000,000,000

Population of Earth:
about 6,000,000,000

Weight of Apollo 11:
about 30,000 kg

Number of Apollo 11's needed to change Earth's weight by 1%
1,991,400,000,000,000,000

In conclusion, the Earth is really big.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:21 · Score: 0

mass of average person:
about 100 kilograms

I would say that you must be American, but you are using metric units.
Re:Only so much carbon... by kfg · 2004-02-15 14:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

I used foot and a half wide. You'll find that's about right for the average American adult male, so for humanity the figure is actually generous.

Do the math, it might surprise you.

Just before WWII we only would have needed a box half a mile to the side to pack away humanity, but we've grown a bit since then.

KFG
Re:Only so much carbon... by Yorrike · 2004-02-15 14:26 · Score: 5, Funny

True as that may be, people are getting fatter...
Say a group of zombies, or ninjas, or a killer virus that turned people into zombie ninjas, caused a good 5 billion people to die. Sure, these guys would have a booming business, but at 70Kg for each corpse, that's 350,000,000,000Kg (350 billion), which would require a millennium to replaces with space dust.
And besides, if you're ejecting all those kadavas into space, you're just asking the aforementioned virus to evolve, giving rise to a hideous race of mutant space zombie-ninjas.
Zombies need to eat too.

--
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:27 · Score: 0

How much of the mass that falls to earth contains complex organic compounds and a variety of critters such as those found in the human body?

The point is that the worms are losing out. Space burials, cremation, formaldehyde... all bad. Diseased rotting corpse buried 6 feet deep in an old pine box... good.
Re:Only so much carbon... by captain+igor · 2004-02-15 14:30 · Score: 1

Really, once a person is cremated, they're really only several ounces of material, we'd have to throw away 10's of billions of people before we noticed any change... Besides, meteors and other space materials crashing to earth more than make up for anything we launch.
Re:Only so much carbon... by evilmrhenry · 2004-02-15 14:30 · Score: 1

I would say that you must be American, but you are using metric units.

I overestimated to make the math easier. Doesn't change the answer.
Re:Only so much carbon... by borgboy · 2004-02-15 14:34 · Score: 4, Informative

okay...by your reasoning:
1 person is 10 cubic feet of space (5x2x1)
there are 6E9 people in the world
10 cuft/person x 6E9 people = 6E10 cuft

a box, 3/4 mile cube, holds 3960x3960x3960 cuft...
that comes to 6.2E10 cubic feet.

or, in laymans terms, enough.

Original poster was correct, by your own figures. By his, he's at worst rather generous with the box.

--
meh.
Re:Only so much carbon... by spacecowboy420 · 2004-02-15 14:36 · Score: 1

I'm 6'6" you insensitive clod!

--
ymmv
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:37 · Score: 0

Do the math.
No!
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:41 · Score: 0

mass of average person:
about 100 kilograms
I feel dangerously malnourished.
Re:Only so much carbon... by cujo_1111 · 2004-02-15 14:44 · Score: 1

What is with this cubic feet crap. Work in metric.

I have now done the sums and yes he was correct. 3/4 of a mile didn't sound right at first read.

--
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Re:Only so much carbon... by cujo_1111 · 2004-02-15 14:46 · Score: 1

I am not a clod, you insensitive clod!

Not everyone on the planet is full sized adult (growing children, shrinking old people) so I used an approximation of an average.

--
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Re:Only so much carbon... by WormholeFiend · 2004-02-15 14:46 · Score: 1

all sorts of minerals are found in meteorites.

besides, everything gets recycled and churned in the Earth's core eventually anyway, where stuff gets transmuted into whathaveyou under immense pressure, heat, magnetism and radioactivity.

this leads me to a slightly offtopic idea... why dont we bury all our radioactive garbage deep into a subduction tectonic plate, near a subduction zone?
Re:Only so much carbon... by Ravadill · 2004-02-15 14:47 · Score: 1

They send some/all (depending on choice) of the *cremated* remains only, no whole bodies, so there certainly won't be 70Kg of mass leaving for each corpse.
Re:Only so much carbon... by bersl2 · 2004-02-15 14:48 · Score: 1

Do the ninjas play guitars?
Re:Only so much carbon... by BillyBlaze · 2004-02-15 14:50 · Score: 1

By your slightly more generous size estimate:
(6400000000 people * 5 ft * 2 ft * 1 ft) ^ (1 / 3) / 5280 = .76 miles.
So yes, a three-quarters of a mile wide cube would be about right.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:53 · Score: 0

besides, everything gets recycled and churned in the Earth's core eventually anyway, where stuff gets transmuted into whathaveyou under immense pressure, heat, magnetism and radioactivity.
Hum. Getting to the parent, does sand get transformed into titanium? How about lead into gold? Cool stuff happens under the earth's crust, but not nuclear fission or fusion.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:53 · Score: 0

So assuming that people are on average 5'x2'x1' they would have a volume of 10 cubic feet. 10'^3 X 6 Million = 60 million cubic feet.
Now 3/4 of a mile = 5280' x (3/4) = 3960'
3960'x 3960'x 3960' = the volume of a box with sides of 3/4 mile = 62,099,136,000 cubic feet, or just enough room to fit comfortably ..... if we were sardines that is.
Re:Only so much carbon... by borgboy · 2004-02-15 14:55 · Score: 1

The original estimate was in empirical units. Why waste time converting only to demonstrate that his math was correct? But...fine:

The human body comes out to .287 m^3

multiplied by 6 billion, comes to 1.722E9 m^3
the cube root of which is 1198 m.
which comes to .744 miles. Even with unit conversions that defy real live rocket scientists, his figures remain firm.

--
meh.
Re:Only so much carbon... by wrmrxxx · 2004-02-15 14:59 · Score: 2, Informative

that box would have to be about 3/4 mile per side

That doesn't sound right, so I've done my own quick calculation in metric. I'm assuming that the average size of a person is 50cm by 30cm (~1 foot 8 inches by 1 foot), that there are about 6 billion people, and that all of them are standing up in the box. These assumptions should be near enough, and make it easy to do without a calculator.

area per person = 0.50m * 0.30m = 0.15m^2 total area = 0.15m^2 * 6.0E9 = 9.0E8m^2 length per box side = sqrt(0.9E8m^2) = 3.0E4m = 30km

This is a lot more that 3/4 mile per side - more like 19 miles per side.
Re:Only so much carbon... by addaon · 2004-02-15 14:59 · Score: 1

I think he's calling me fat... I'm above average!

--

I've had this sig for three days.
Re:Only so much carbon... by cujo_1111 · 2004-02-15 15:01 · Score: 1

Which is the more worthy project? Space elavator or massive sardien tin for mankind?

--
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Re:Only so much carbon... by whereiswaldo · 2004-02-15 15:01 · Score: 1

besides, everything gets recycled and churned in the Earth's core eventually anyway

Well, that's a mighty big "eventually". We're still digging up dinosaur bones from hundreds of millions or billions of years ago. How long will it take that layer to get into the core, if ever?
Re:Only so much carbon... by schnits0r · 2004-02-15 15:01 · Score: 1

He means "The average Slashdotter"

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Re:Only so much carbon... by GigsVT · 2004-02-15 15:01 · Score: 1

A few grams of your lifeless body.

It's kinda silly, since we are all on a big satellite right now. :)

--
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Re:Only so much carbon... by BuckaBooBob · 2004-02-15 15:07 · Score: 1

"ISS .. This is Ground Control... We need to to make a few burns to avoid Bob again... He is on a heading that could take out your life support."

--
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
Re:Only so much carbon... by moosesocks · 2004-02-15 15:07 · Score: 1

If 5 billion people die, we're going to have to worry about a lot more than a commercial space program.

Believe me, losing 85% of the world population would probably take precedent over anything like what you're talking about.

--
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Re:Only so much carbon... by Jad+LaFields · 2004-02-15 15:15 · Score: 1

why dont we bury all our radioactive garbage deep into a subduction tectonic plate, near a subduction zone

Well, I really should google your question, but I'd rather talk out my ass... I do remember reading somewhere that this suggestion of yours was and is being seriously considered, but might be infesible for financial reasons...

--
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
Re:Only so much carbon... by Have+Blue · 2004-02-15 15:18 · Score: 3, Funny

If you took all the people in the world and packed them into a box, like sardines, without cremating, that box would have to be about 3/4 mile per side.

Maybe so, but can they all stand on Zanzibar?
Re:Only so much carbon... by chrispycreeme · 2004-02-15 15:31 · Score: 1

1 cubic mile = 147 197 952 000 cubic feet
says google
If each person is only 10 cubic feet just drop a zero and you could still fit a crapload of corpses in that box.. around 14 billion, even if they are Americans..
Re:Only so much carbon... by madpierre · 2004-02-15 15:42 · Score: 1

that is compressing them all under massive force

Wow. Rather than bieng blasted into space I want my ashes to be
made into a synthetic diamond and made into jewelery or a substrate
for a 81 GHz CPU.

--
siggy played guitar
Re:Only so much carbon... by parkanoid · 2004-02-15 15:52 · Score: 1

The parent poster probably including stacking vertically, as well.
Re:Only so much carbon... by jrockway · 2004-02-15 15:52 · Score: 2, Informative

Humans are 3D objects. Hence you can't fit them in a square. You have to use a cube, which happens to be 3/4 a mile in size.

The calculations are correct. Amazing, eh?

--
My other car is first.
Re:Only so much carbon... by McCrapDeluxe · 2004-02-15 15:52 · Score: 2, Funny

You seem to have misplaced a dimension-- namely, the third.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Dahan · 2004-02-15 15:54 · Score: 3, Funny

I'm assuming that the average size of a person is 50cm by 30cm (~1 foot 8 inches by 1 foot)
Hey, how's life down there in Flatland? *sticks fingers through wrmrxxx's plane to mess with him*
In my universe, people are three dimensional; it's like having another degree of freedom!
Re:Only so much carbon... by mazarin5 · 2004-02-15 16:23 · Score: 1

I think this is where he was going with this:
Assuming the average human is 1.7m, then the volume
becomes 9.0E8m^2 * 1.7m = 1.5E9m^3.
If we then take this very approximate volume, and
arrange it in a metaphor optimized cube, then
it's dimension would be 1152.3m on each side,
or 0.716003137 miles.
I think that's close enough to three quarters of a mile given our assumptions.
(BTW, that's about 3.4e12 kg)

--
Fnord.
Re:Only so much carbon... by sootman · 2004-02-15 16:25 · Score: 1

Excellent book called "Why Do Birds" about a plan to put everyone on the planet into a 1 cubic mile box. I never did the math, though, to see if they'd fit.

--
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Re:Only so much carbon... by kmac06 · 2004-02-15 16:27 · Score: 1

I'd say do it like this:
70 kg/person * 70000 mL/kg * 1cm^3/ml * 1 mi^3/(4.16818183*10^15cm^3) * 6*10^9 persons = .705 mi^3
Assuming average person 70 kg, average density about water (actually would be a little more dense without air in our lungs). So about 3/4 mi.
Re:Only so much carbon... by wrmrxxx · 2004-02-15 16:29 · Score: 1

I think both my calculations and the O.P's calculations are correct - they are just based on a different set of assumptions. The O.P. assumed that people would be stacked vertically, but I assumed that they wouldn't be.

You don't "have to use a cube" - it's just a choice. I think it would be mean to make all those people stand on top of each other. Of course that's all academic anyway, because standing side by side would be no fun either, and besides, who would nail the box shut if everyone was on the inside? Somewhere out there an alien bulk meat transportation company representative is reading this thread and adding up the potential profits...
Re:Only so much carbon... by madpierre · 2004-02-15 16:29 · Score: 1

I once read that the worlds population would fit onto the Isle of Wight (small island off the south coast England). This agrees with your calculation. :)

--
siggy played guitar
Re:Only so much carbon... by Odin's+Raven · 2004-02-15 17:39 · Score: 1

mass of average person:
...
number of bodies needed to change the Earth's weight by 1%:
...
Population of Earth:
...
Weight of Apollo 11:
...
Number of Apollo 11's needed to change Earth's weight by 1%
...

Pffft. Who can understand abstract comparisons like that? Here's the proper one to make:
mass of Volkswagen (per VW's specs)
about 1,400 kilograms

Number of Volkswagens needed to change Earth's weight by 1%:
42,672,857,142,857,100,000
Everyone understands VWs as a unit of measurement! ;-)

--
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
Re:Only so much carbon... by tylernt · 2004-02-15 18:02 · Score: 1

Dang you, VW != Beetle! I'm sick and tired of all of us Rabbit, Scirocco, Fox, Jetta, Golf, Vanagon, and Passat owners being lumped in with the hippies!

(No offense to the hippies.)

--
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 18:33 · Score: 0

Everyone I know who owns one of those cars is a hippie in denial. Well, actually it is just that one pot head blonde with the Jetta...oh yea and she crashed it....nevermind
Re:Only so much carbon... by SatanicPuppy · 2004-02-15 18:46 · Score: 1

It's been talked about. The problem is that it'll still be subducting 50,000 years from now. It's not exactly a speedy process.

--
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Re:Only so much carbon... by 4ntifa · 2004-02-15 19:01 · Score: 1

mass of average person:
about 100 kilograms

You're an American, right?

--
-=- 4ntifa -=-
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 20:08 · Score: 0

At least you'd be dead.

Cunt.
Re:Only so much carbon... by NiteHaqr · 2004-02-15 20:58 · Score: 1

WTF's a kadava ?????

Oh you mean cadaver

Must be that "American" English I keep hearing about. :P

Well it must be - after all one of yout latest Slashdot journal's is all about bad spelling - but hey this is a whole different ball game - this is making shit up

http://slashdot.org/~Yorrike/journal/

To quote the journal

"So you see, using the correct word in the correct place is not that difficult. If a total chimps like me can do it, then so can super brains like you."

And its goodnight from me...... (well figuratively, not literally)
Re:Only so much carbon... by glenebob · 2004-02-15 21:01 · Score: 1

You're making me feel so insignificant. I think I'll go invent some sort of greater being that cares about me.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 21:06 · Score: 0

Ummm... shakespeare made up hundreds of words...
Re:Only so much carbon... by dasunt · 2004-02-15 21:58 · Score: 1

Still, maybe launching yourself into space could prevent you from being brought back to life someday. Then again, maybe you'd be brought back to life to fight some losing battle against aliens... ;)

There is an older SF short (title and author forgotten) about a man whose frozen and thawed out later so he can be used to fight wars across the galaxy. As time marches on, it gets to the point where they no longer freeze him, but instead send the information out and use that to recreate him.

In the end, he gets shot by himself. Turned out that both sides got access to that information.

So, in the future, you can get involved in petty wars with pirated versions of yourself.
Re:Only so much carbon... by isopossu · 2004-02-16 01:02 · Score: 1

I could sit here half the night listing reasons why launching dead granny dust into space is a pretty daft idea
Well, it's smarter than to bury some native Americans to the middle of the Earth turning our planet into one giant Amityville.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 01:36 · Score: 0

Yep. And more recently, Ibonics. See "rap" for more details.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 05:03 · Score: 0

People are actually starting to do astro physics and advanced calc just to figure out if a metaphor is correct.

I'm thinking we have too much time on our hands.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Viceice · 2004-02-16 06:14 · Score: 1

What would be better would be to be shot off into space on an intercept course with earth 10,000 years from now.

--
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Re:Only so much carbon... by AeroIllini · 2004-02-16 12:19 · Score: 1

So, in the future, you can get involved in petty wars with pirated versions of yourself.

You'd think that the MPAAC (Mercenary Protection Association of Alpha Centauri) would jump on that.

--
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Re:Only so much carbon... by AeroIllini · 2004-02-16 12:32 · Score: 1

And now you can.

By the way, the largest diamond they offer is 1 Carat, which is 0.2 grams. Which could easily be fired into space.

--
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Re:Only so much carbon... by Behrooz · 2004-02-18 11:09 · Score: 1

What if we put a nuke underneath and launched the sardine tin into orbit?

We could become fearless explorers of the universe together as the human race!

I did that with a sardine tin and some firecrackers when I was just a boy... It had some fearless ant-stronauts aboard too if I recall correctly.

Maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea after all...

--
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin

The perfect gift by Bobdoer · 2004-02-15 13:58 · Score: 5, Funny

This is what you give your geek on Valentine's Day. You may have to kill them first, but it's worth it.

--
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY

Re:The perfect gift by smchris · 2004-02-15 17:59 · Score: 1

Awfully expensive way to dispose of the body.
Re:The perfect gift by Bobdoer · 2004-02-15 18:33 · Score: 1

But if you really love them, it's worth every penny.

--
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY

Old news - they handled my brother by wowbagger · 2004-02-15 13:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is old news - Celestis handled my brother back in 2000.

--
www.eFax.com are spammers

Re:Old news - they handled my brother by JudgeFurious · 2004-02-15 14:04 · Score: 0, Offtopic

But will they be able to handle the slashdotting their about to get? That's the real question.

Somehow I think the answer will be no.

--
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Re:Old news - they handled my brother by MikeXpop · 2004-02-15 14:12 · Score: 1

P.S. I'll be the one in white pants and an "aloha" shirt.
A true geek.

--
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Re:Old news - they handled my brother by cthugha · 2004-02-15 15:31 · Score: 1

Judging from your nick, you obviously don't intend for them to be handling you anytime soon. :)
Re:Old news - they handled my brother by Stinking+Pig · 2004-02-15 15:39 · Score: 1

He tried to duplicate the exact circumstances of that thing with the irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands?

--
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
Re:Old news - they handled my brother by chiph · 2004-02-16 01:58 · Score: 1

I've been to their site before (after reading an article in Wired Magazine a few years ago). I'm willing to consider it when my time comes, but I was curious about your take on it.

What is your opinion of:
- The whole idea of burial in space
- The way the ceremony, etc. were handled?
- Would you consider it yourself?
- Did scheduling difficulties cause any problems?

Chip H.
Re:Old news - they handled my brother by wowbagger · 2004-02-16 02:46 · Score: 1

I can give you very little information about the actual process - Bob's wife handled the whole thing.

Personally, I have a Klingon attitude toward the handling of human remains. Funerals, wakes, internment, are all for the benefit of the *survivors* of the deceased, not the deceased - he no longer cares.

Personally, I would rather my estate conserve money and creamate me cheaply and dispose of the ashes cheaply, so that any value in the estate can go to those who survive me.

And you do not want to get me started on funeral homes, caskets, and burial plots (clue: I highlighted the word "plots" for a reason).

--
www.eFax.com are spammers
Re:Old news - they handled my brother by chiph · 2004-02-16 12:54 · Score: 1

I'm with you on the scam that is the funeral business. I'm not too worried about the money -- I'll be under the $625,000 death tax exemption for a long long time, thanks to the dot-bust. But I find it intriguing in that very few people have ever done it (gone into space). I'll never climb Everest or K2, but I might have the ability to be the first in the family to go to the moon.

Thanks for the reply.
Chip H.

Cemeteries are landfills by ObviousGuy · 2004-02-15 13:59 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Take a look around a cemetery some time and just try to absorb how much human garbage is buried there. From alcoholics to wife-beaters, these people are giving us the finger by taking up precious land into perpetuity.

Cultures which practice cremation have a much better idea. Just burn everyone to a crisp and reduce their mass to a couple ounces of dust instead of taking up several cubic yards of space.

Sending your dead ash into space sounds great.

--
I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.

Re:Cemeteries are landfills by damiam · 2004-02-15 14:03 · Score: 5, Informative

Cemetaries don't last forever. They can be reused every few hundred years.

--
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by gid13 · 2004-02-15 14:15 · Score: 1

Are there any systems in place to prevent that?

Should there be?
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:17 · Score: 0

To paraphrase "Caddieshack" - how about being buried by the Great Wall of China, on the good side. this is mr wang - no offense.....
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Snoopy77 · 2004-02-15 14:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well my granddad never touched alcohol, nor did he beat up on his wife and my family can go and pay their respects at his grave site at any time.

Reducing him and many others to the equal of garbage is disrespectful to say the least.

--
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:25 · Score: 0

How quaint it is that you feel that you need to go to a site in order to commune with your ancestors. Do you bury your dead with servants and wives as well?
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:35 · Score: 0

Was you granddad Ned Flanders?
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by kirkjobsluder · 2004-02-15 14:46 · Score: 4, Informative

This is true, a lot of the really old cemetaries in Europe reuse graves ever few generations. The United States has not been around quite long enough to require charnel houses (where bones are stacked to make way for new graves) except in New Orleans where the the previous occupant was pushed to the back of the crypt.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by swordsaintzero · 2004-02-15 14:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

So alcholics are garbage and by inference are on par with wife beating scum, because they have a genetic predisposition towards a drinking problem? I have to say of all the stupid things typed in haste and posted on slashdot you sir have entered into the hall of fame of fuckups.

--
Panel F, Relay #70
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by addaon · 2004-02-15 15:02 · Score: 1

Disrespectful to whom, exactly? Or if you prefer, to what?

--

I've had this sig for three days.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:05 · Score: 0

They're HEEEEEEERRREEEEEE.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:06 · Score: 0

Is it a genetic predisposition to be unable to control onesself? Perhaps you'd like to absolve child molestors of their sins as well due to their genetic predisposition to be attracted to young kids.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Snoopy77 · 2004-02-15 15:10 · Score: 1

Was you granddad Ned Flanders?
Better than having Homer Simpson as my granddad.

--
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Joel+Carr · 2004-02-15 15:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Well I'm going to bite.

It would appear that you have never had a friend die. Or if you have, you didn't have too much respect or emotional attachment to that person.

To refer to buried human remains simply as 'garbage' is an unbelievably shallow comment. Yes when it comes down to the bare basics, buried people are dead. They aren't going to earn another pay cheque. They won't be at their desk helping the economy steam on. But that does not mean they are worthless or worthy of being equated to 'garbage'.

Cemeteries are a place for people to return to after losing a loved one. They are a place that helps people overcome grief and loss, by allowing them to return to the resting place of a loved one and pay their final respects. The vary fact that you can be present at the place a friends body is buried can mean a great deal emotionally.

Cemeteries are a way of honouring the dead. Some of us believe that human life is valuable and should be respected, even after death. For some people, cemeteries are the best way for them to do that.

Also cemeteries can serve as a reminder of the past. In a cemetery where one of my friends is buried there are many white crosses marking the graves of soldiers whos bodies were brought home. There is a message there that should never be forgotten.

---

--
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Snoopy77 · 2004-02-15 15:15 · Score: 1

I said pay respects, not commune.

--
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by SaV · 2004-02-15 15:19 · Score: 3, Interesting

actually, being a student of anthropology/archaeology has made me want to be cremated even more. i don't want my body dug up in a couple hundred years to be studied!
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:24 · Score: 0

ObviousGuy is a troll.
Check out the troll blacklist sometime.
He's rather blatant.
DNFTT.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by NanoGator · 2004-02-15 15:26 · Score: 1

"Reducing him and many others to the equal of garbage is disrespectful to say the least."

Only if he said "don't send me into space."

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Have+Blue · 2004-02-15 15:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

Your house/apartment/whatever is taking up far more space than a single grave. I can think of a few ways to improve this situation.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:36 · Score: 0

Do you think he cares whether you are respecting him or not?

Maybe you're only going to the grave to show off to everyone else how much you respect him.

If you really wanted to respect him, you can do it by remembering him in your mind and living in a way that doesn't bring disrespect on your family.

Going to the grave is just for show.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Snoopy77 · 2004-02-15 15:47 · Score: 1

You have amazing insight into how I act for someone who does not know me. People are free to pay their respects as they see fit. It just so happens that many people do like to go to the grave site as it is often a quiet place with few people around. It's not like we invite crowds or the media everytime we go to the grave site.

--
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by damiam · 2004-02-15 15:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

To refer to buried human remains simply as 'garbage' is an unbelievably shallow comment. Yes when it comes down to the bare basics, buried people are dead. They aren't going to earn another pay cheque. They won't be at their desk helping the economy steam on. But that does not mean they are worthless or worthy of being equated to 'garbage'.
The people are not worthless. But their bodies are. You aren't (normally) attached to the bodies of your friends and families, you're attached to their minds and souls. No matter what you do with the body, whether you burn it or bury it, the soul is not around any more. The body is just a bit of decomposing matter. Ecologically speaking, it's garbage.
I would rather have my ashes scattered in a place that I loved, so that my family could remember me every time they were there, and so that my body would go back into the nature environment and nurture new life. I'd rather go out in a burst of flame than slowly be eaten away by worms over the decades.
Many cultures manage to do quite well without cemetaries - Japan has a 97% cremation rate. While I respect the right of people to dispose of their bodies as they see fit, I believe that the US would be better off if we did the same.

--
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Joel+Carr · 2004-02-15 17:14 · Score: 1

Well I took exception to the nature of the original poster's comment, that is all, but I'll reply to your post also.

The only thing I want to comment on it this:
The people are not worthless. But their bodies are. You aren't (normally) attached to the bodies of your friends and families, you're attached to their minds and souls.

Yes and no. Certainly the minds and souls are what matter the most to the majority of people, but the body means a lot to them as well. Especially when they have passed away and the person's mind and soul is no longer here.

This is why there is often the opportunity to view the body when someone dies. This is why some armies adopt a nobody gets left behind policy. This is why a family I know paid many, many thousands of dollars to have a family member's body returned home when he died on an overseas holiday.

The fact is a loved one's body can mean a lot to people. Ecologically speaking it may be garbage, but I believe this is an oversimplification. Also garbage has the connotation of worthlessness, trash, rubbish and grot. I feel it undermines the value of what was a human life. This was my main issue with the grandparent's post.

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Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Trejkaz · 2004-02-15 17:48 · Score: 1

It doesn't even seem that much more expensive than a normal burial. I mean, a funeral is already what, $3000? That's the kind of cremation I would love the most, being in a capsule shoved out of a shuttle back towards earth, and burning up on re-entry.

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Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by Carthag · 2004-02-15 21:14 · Score: 1

actually, being a student of anthropology/archaeology has made me want to be cremated even more. i don't want my body dug up in a couple hundred years to be studied!

So what about the people you're studying? Do you ask them first?
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by SaV · 2004-02-17 07:53 · Score: 1

actually, it has made me more sensitive than ever to the rights of people buried thousands of years ago. it is because of this that i am a strong supporter of nagpra, and i choose not to study burials. it's a dilemma because although i see how their information gained from studying burials is unique and interesting, i also realize that those burials were never meant to be dug up. i also believe that if bodies are going to be dug up, they should eventually be reinterred and not left on display forever. anyway, it is a quandry, and i hope it didn't sound like i was being hypocritical in my previous statement.
Re:Cemeteries are landfills by UrGeek · 2004-02-19 11:15 · Score: 1

Good point - and I will burn some of good karma to flame those BAKAS who give you a flamebait rating.

But I recently learn that Western cremation is SIX HOURS of high temperature flaming - natural gas in Texas, I imagine a hell of a lot of fuel oil for you Yankees. That is one hugemo amount of fossil fuel putting greenhouse gases as well as other pollutate that probably exempt from EPA standards.

I think Michael Valentine Smith may have had the right idea about not wasting meat - pass the ancestors and pass the roast, please!

I want to burn in the Sun by Threni · 2004-02-15 13:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

We all will...eventually. You'll be dead anyway, so why does it matter if you get toasted in the months following your death rather than a few hundred million?

Re: I want to burn in the Sun by twoslice · 2004-02-15 14:53 · Score: 1

We all will...eventually. You'll be dead anyway, so why does it matter if you get toasted in the months following your death rather than a few hundred million?
Not Neccesarily.

--

From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Re: I want to burn in the Sun by SanityInAnarchy · 2004-02-15 16:15 · Score: 1

Because one way you sort of slowly decompose into elements and then maybe burn in the sun, maybe not (depends on what happens to the sun then).

The other way, you are a recognizable corpse every moment until, suddenly -- poof -- you're a bit of floating carbon. If even that. And maybe you leave something in your will to the mob, so they can strap your enemies to your capsule -- so the same thing can happen to them.

I can't imagine caring that much, but whatever turns you on...

--
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Re: I want to burn in the Sun by JumperCable · 2004-02-15 18:57 · Score: 1

We all will...eventually. You'll be dead anyway, so why does it matter if you get toasted in the months following your death rather than a few hundred million?

Not if they shoot your corpse out of our solar system.

Cheap by sith · 2004-02-15 14:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

This seems awfully affordable for launching anything in to space. Even if it is cremated remains, I would have expectede that it would be more expensive. Their webpage claims they have two of these in orbit already though. So all I need to do is find $11k and then cremate myself...

Re:Cheap by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:49 · Score: 0

Yeah, I think 11k sounds pretty cheap too. Perhaps they are cutting costs using methods like the guy in Georgia a couple of years ago?
Re:Cheap by moltar77 · 2004-02-15 17:03 · Score: 1

Cremate yourself? Don't you think that would be a little painful? And good luck finding anyone willing to let you jump in their furnace...

Space Burial? by UltimateZer0 · 2004-02-15 14:00 · Score: 1, Funny

So would launching at the sun count as space cremation?

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--- I'm going to get a score of -1 for this post because the mods are fuckers.

Target Practice by fatman1683 · 2004-02-15 14:00 · Score: 1

Given the current state of debris in orbit, I wonder how long it will be until a capsule is struck by a dangerously large piece of matter, scattering ashes throughout low earth orbit.

Any bets?

--
Look, defenseless babies!

Re:Target Practice by kamapuaa · 2004-02-15 14:18 · Score: 1

Given the current state of debris in orbit, I wonder how long it will be until a capsule is struck by a dangerously large piece of matter, scattering ashes throughout low earth orbit.
About the same chances as winning $100 million in the lottery, I'd imagine. Maybe less. Space is huge. Just the surface of the Earth is huge, and that's essentially 2-dimensional, while people go to a large variety of altitudes in space.

--
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Re:Target Practice by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:43 · Score: 0

About the same chances as winning $100 million in the lottery, I'd imagine. Maybe less.

In other words: "I don't have a fucking clue."

Space is huge.

Yes, "infinite" could be considered "huge." Of course you already knew that, Einstein.

Just the surface of the Earth is huge, and that's essentially 2-dimensional, while people go to a large variety of altitudes in space.

"altitudes" in space? Ummm..

Congratulations on the more moronic, useless, idiotic slashdot post of the weekend.
Re:Target Practice by kamapuaa · 2004-02-15 14:51 · Score: 1

Are you suggesting I was unaware that space goes on (more or less) infinitely? If I really thought that, I would have said that the chances of being hit by space junk would be 0. If you define altitude as the distance from the earth's surface (which many people do), satellites & space junk fall within a more limited range.
All that hostility because I speak in normal conversational terms? Calculating the area of a sphere would be trivial, but it wouldn't change my argument.

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Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.

a bit cheap by dj245 · 2004-02-15 14:00 · Score: 5, Interesting

Only $11,000? Thats pretty cheap, considering the cost of taking a pound of gear into orbit. How do they get human remains that light? Even when you cremate a body, significant bones and dust remain. What do they do, throw away most of it and just send up a little bit of each person on their sattelite? Cremated remains can weigh upwards of two to five pounds. I'm wondering if this is all a scam, considering the high cost of burial space in certain geographical areas. In some places, a burial plot can cost even more than $11,000.

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Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.

Re:a bit cheap by Nihynjahs · 2004-02-15 14:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

they sends lots of lead up in with sattelites to use as a ballast i know that, so maybe they are just using bodies now.. at a 11,000 dollars its cheaper for them and at 150 lbs for an avereage person... its and idea at least
Re:a bit cheap by dj245 · 2004-02-15 14:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

Moon Miner's Manifesto has a piece on how the Celestis capsule will only be in orbit for a year before the ashes meet a fiery end and proposes other and similar methods of putting remains in space.

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Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Re:a bit cheap by challahc · 2004-02-15 14:20 · Score: 1, Informative

EARTHVIEW SERVICE I Introduced in 2002, this new service places a 1 gram sample of the cremated remains into Earth orbit. The Celestis memorial satellite eventually reenters Earth's atmosphere and harmlessly vaporizes, blazing like a shooting star in final tribute. This service provides: * The launch of a 1g symbolic portion of the cremated remains into Earth orbit * Flight capsule imprinted with personal message * Invitation to the launch event * Personalized video of launch event and memorial ceremony * Dedicated virtual memorial of the deceased on our website * Contribution to the Celestis Foundation * Performance assurance Price of Service: $995. Payment plans are available.
For $1000 they send 1 gram into orbit for $6000 7 grams.

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01100010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101
Re:a bit cheap by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:28 · Score: 0

Cheap?!

Exactly how much do you think it costs to shoot a corpse out of a huge ACME cannon? These guys are looking at ~$10,000 profit per stiff, easy.
Re:a bit cheap by Beatbyte · 2004-02-15 14:30 · Score: 1

its actually cheaper than you think.

this is john carmack's side-job with his rockets. and by space... they mean 400, maybe 500 feet in the air.

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Get paid to code OSS
Re:a bit cheap by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:36 · Score: 0

Ted: "Given the toxicity of lead, we need to find some other material to balance our spacecraft with."
John: "We're in luck, Ted. I've been in communication with a person who thinks he might be able to solve our problem."
Ted: "What's he got? Uranium? Iridium? Neutronium?"
John: "Nothing like that. Those things are expensive. With this ballast, we get paid to put in on the spacecraft. A negative expense!"
Ted: "Come on, what is it?"
John: "Dead bodies, Ted."
Re:a bit cheap by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:48 · Score: 0

Cremated remains can weigh upwards of two to five pounds.

That depends on how high you raise the temperature. If you raise the temperature above the boiling point of tungsten (5555 C), then every element evaporates, and absolutely nothing remains.
Re:a bit cheap by solarrhino · 2004-02-15 16:03 · Score: 1

Maybe they use you are fuel? But a scam is a lot more likely: safe and easy. What, are you going to go up and check?

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"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
Re:a bit cheap by SatanicPuppy · 2004-02-15 18:41 · Score: 1

I heard something about this a while back. When they creamate you for orbit, they use a high heat pure oxygen system, which results in much more complete cremation, and thus a smaller remaining amount of...errr....remains.

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ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

You want to burn in the Sun? by skyhawker · 2004-02-15 14:00 · Score: 5, Funny

No problem. Just get buried here on earth. Eventually, your wish will be granted. And since you're dead, the wait will be quite bearable. :-)

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The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.
-- Scotty.

Re:You want to burn in the Sun? by polymath69 · 2004-02-15 14:09 · Score: 4, Funny

No problem. Just get buried here on earth. Eventually, your wish will be granted.

Exactly. Once the sun goes red-giant, its radius will be far larger than the orbital distance of this little planet. So everyone's bones will eventually wind up toast.
Worried about global warming? Now that's global warming.

--

--
I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
Re:You want to burn in the Sun? by LauraScudder · 2004-02-15 15:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

The disappointing thing is that since the sun is ~8.5 light-minutes away, we won't even get to enjoy seeing it explode before we burn to a crisp.
Re:You want to burn in the Sun? by SirTalon42 · 2004-02-15 15:27 · Score: 1

actually we will see it, unless it expands at the speed of light, which would mean time dialation and it would send the earth back to the early 80s... that would explain a lot actually...
Re:You want to burn in the Sun? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 04:57 · Score: 0

So much wrong with the science ... head going to explode...

Points:

1) The sun is 10 solar masses, so no Supernova explosion, just a slow swelling as it tries to fuse heavier and heavier elements.

2) The sun will actually cool and expand over MILLIONS of years, eventually engulfing the Earth (and all the other inner planets)

3) If the sun _were_ to go Supernova, yes you would see it, just 8 minutes after it happened, and you wouldn't have too long to enjoy the view. :P

Yay! by cujo_1111 · 2004-02-15 14:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

Instead of having your ashes placed in the ocean or on your favourite piece of land somewhere, you can burn up on re-entry and be spread across the whole planet.

I don't think the company will be allowed to put you into orbit (it would decay anyway), so they will have to punt you out into deep space or let you burn up. For US$11K I don't think that will cover the cost of ejecting you from the earth's gravity.

I wonder if I can work this into my life insurance plan?

--
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.

Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:11 · Score: 0

Actually from the look of the FAQs... they don't punt you out to space.. they put a "cerimonial portion of your ashes" in to one of their commerical sats, along with samples of 20 to 30 other individuals... and you stay up there as long as the sat does.
Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:23 · Score: 0

When I die I want my remains fed to dolphins and whales. Let the greenies put that in their pipe and smoke it!

Actually they could do that to.

Interesting Terminology by calmdude · 2004-02-15 14:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

The phrase that is used is being "buried in space". Quite obviously, one cannot be literally buried in space. What they do is cremate and eject the remains into stellar space.

I don't remember anyone saying Gene Roddenberry was buried in space....I wonder if he was the first person to voluntarily have his remains ejected into space.

Re:Interesting Terminology by freeze128 · 2004-02-15 14:08 · Score: 1

How about "Buried in the nearest black hole"?
Re:Interesting Terminology by silentrob · 2004-02-15 15:11 · Score: 1

IIRC, he wasn't buried in space. They shot his cremated remains into orbit, then let them fall back and burn up in re-entry. I think thier goal was to turn Gene into a shooting star.
Re:Interesting Terminology by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 01:40 · Score: 0

Actually, in a recent Trek reference book (I can't remember which, but it might have been "The Inside Story" by original series producers Herb Solow and Bob Justman), the writers quoted a prominent member of production staff as saying that if they hadn't cremated Gene, people would've come to piss on his grave...

I bet not many people will want to... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:01 · Score: 5, Funny

...burn in Uranus.

Re:I bet not many people will want to... by darnok · 2004-02-15 15:09 · Score: 3, Funny

No, but Uranus would burn if there were people in it

There were already remains in orbit by TotallyUseless · 2004-02-15 14:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

LSD Guru Tim Leary, Gene Roddenberry, and 22 others had their remains shot up into orbit in a capsule in 1997. The capsule was supposed to remain in orbit for around 18 months, then burn up on reentry into the atmosphere, for a double cremation!

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Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!

Re:There were already remains in orbit by TotallyUseless · 2004-02-15 14:05 · Score: 5, Informative

Bonus Link: Lists the passengers on that Founder's Flight.

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Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!

Very very old news... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:01 · Score: 0

They've been doing this since the 90s.. Timothy Leary got shot into space along with a few other people.

Awesome by filtur · 2004-02-15 14:01 · Score: 5, Funny

This would be a great way to test the Missle Defense System. I don't know about anyone else, but personally I wouldn't mind being put to rest in a big explosion at the cost to the U.S. taxpayer.

Re:Awesome by cujo_1111 · 2004-02-15 14:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

You wouldn't be the first, thousands of Japanese have already received this honour.

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If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Re:Awesome by Crypto+Gnome · 2004-02-15 14:28 · Score: 1

a big explosion at the cost to the U.S. taxpayer

Ah! Yet another reference to the late '90s DotCOM boom-and-bust.

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Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Re:Awesome by moosesocks · 2004-02-15 15:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

Who modded this as funny?

This is something which most americans need to ponder seriously. Especially when you consider voting a trigger-happy president such as Bush into office.

If any other country committed such an atrocity against another as the United States did to Japan, we would have World War 3 (it DID cause the cold war, but that's another story). Okay... Japan unsuccessfully attacked a naval base. We nuked two cities without warning, killing thousands.

Not exactly something that deserves +5 funny.

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-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Re:Awesome by myowntrueself · 2004-02-15 15:17 · Score: 1

"You wouldn't be the first, thousands of Japanese have already received this honour."

And their children, and their old folks!

Maybe the US should invoice the Japs for having provided the service...

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In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Re:Awesome by cujo_1111 · 2004-02-15 15:52 · Score: 0

Not something that deserves +2 flamebait either...

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If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Re:Awesome by Alan+Hicks · 2004-02-15 16:04 · Score: 1

I'll bite.
If any other country committed such an atrocity against another as the United States did to Japan, we would have World War 3 (it DID cause the cold war, but that's another story). Okay... Japan unsuccessfully attacked a naval base. We nuked two cities without warning, killing thousands.

Alot of people died on both sides of WWII in the Pacific. You are singling out the two events that ended that worst of all wars and saying that they shouldn't have happened. Tell me, in a war, why shouldn't we have nuked those two Japanesse cities? With all the men we were loosing in the war, why not just nuke Japan? It certainly changed the death tally more in our favor and broke the back of Japanesse resistance.

You liberals seem to think that any act of war the US does or did is a bad thing. You may be right in this, but tell me, what alternative do you have? Would you have rather we sent in our boys to take those beaches on Japan's mainland and lost many of those men in the resulting battle?

No, I think it's more likely that you believe out country should have never been in the Second World War. You seem to say that we should have ignored Pearl Harbor, given Hawaii to Japan in an attempt to appease them perhaps? Should we then have just let Japan take all the Pacific, ignored the Rape of Nanking?

War is hell. Sherman taught that to us damn well here in Georgia, and we ain't forgot it over the last 140 years. In war, civilians die. That's a fact of war. No matter how much you try to only strike military targets, civilians will die in a war on both sides. You can either roll over and let your enemies walk all over you, or you can fight back as fiercely and as brutally as it takes to win. There are no other options when your enemy will not listen to reason.

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Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 16:11 · Score: 0

You liberals

Ah, that explains that. Just call someone a 'liberal' because they disagree with you, and start telling them what they're supposed to think.

IMHO, the US shouldn't have any control of Hawaii, anyways. If we ran around taking over other countries like we did with Hawaii before, all hell would break loose.
Re:Awesome by Pyromage · 2004-02-15 16:43 · Score: 1

You are quite right, that isn't funny.

But I think you dismiss the nukes as a unilaterally bad idea. I don't want to go so far as to say that it is good that we nuked them, but perhaps that was the lesser of two evils. Another poster goes into that, so I won't.

Instead, I'd like to consider history. Not as an argument for the nuke, but just to put it in perspective.

Fuedal times: if there was a peasant uprising, you rode in with knights and cavalry and killed everyone. Men, women, and children. Well, maybe you raped the women first.

Rome had some great tactics. The practice of decimating: to take every tenth man and execute him. This wasn't done during battle; it was purely an intimidation tactic. And then poisoning the well: the Romans *loved* poisoning the well.

Consider even Japan: they commited some atrocities against the Chinese when they attacked the mainland.

Hitler provides some examples I needn't spell out.

Again, I'm not saying it's morally correct to nuke cities, but your statements are overblown and one-sided. Nuked two cities without warning? Honestly, the first city is warning for the second.

Also, I think one needs to consider after the war: we gave a whole pile of money to the nations that started the war to get them back on their feet, as opposed to forcing them to pay reparations, like the victors of the first World War did. Putting the nations back together has probably averted WW3.

A few thoughts to consider.
Re:Awesome by Pyromage · 2004-02-15 16:46 · Score: 1

Bullshit. We just did that with Afghanistan and Iraq, and all the rest of the world did was run to mommie (the UN), who did nothing but tsk tsk us. And besides, we kept a huge number of the islands we took in the Pacific as protectorates.
Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 16:49 · Score: 0

You need to learn some history. Tip One: read up about Japanese attempts to surrender throughout 1945. Tip Two: read up on the Yalta conference. Tip Three: read up on the breakthrough of Russian troops in Manchuria just before the bomb was dropped. Once you have read up, apply some analytic thinking to the question of why the bomb was dropped, and inded why two bombs were dropped. Get back to use when you have a clue what you are talking about.
Re:Awesome by Ravenrage · 2004-02-15 18:53 · Score: 0

I know this is offtopic but... first of all the attack on the naval base that you mention was unprovoked...second of all "the bomb" saved many many lives. I know that some of us don't beleive the US should have dropped the big one. But don't you think that alot of thinking went into that action???? If not you are lost my friend some media/political party has killed all of your brain cells if you had any to begin with.
proud member of the AFAKA (americans for americans kicking ass)
Re:Awesome by Technician · 2004-02-15 20:39 · Score: 1

We nuked two cities without warning, killing thousands.

We also woke up the world and ended WWII. How many millions did we save? Nobody mentions the early end to an otherwise very extended war.
WWII could have continued on and on like the Vietnam conflict which did not have a sharp conclusion and end of hostilities. It could have continued like the middle east conflict that has been simmering for generations.
Sometimes there can be a lot said for putting a swift end to war.

--
The truth shall set you free!
Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 23:37 · Score: 0

This is a hugely debatable point. Some historians would argue that the Japanese had already lost the will to continue fighting the war and that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki simply a) persuaded their leaders and b) made damn sure that American interests in Asia were protected from the communists. Since the Korean and Vietnam wars followed soon after that second aim wasn't exactly fulfilled by the bombs.

Also bear in mind that more civilians died in the British bombing of Dresden than in Hiroshima. The conclusion then, and in the aftermath of the London blitz, was that bombing civilians makes civilian populations more determined and more patriotic. In other words it makes them more willing to continue fighting, not less. The US should have learned this lesson in Korea, Vietnam, and more recently Afganistan and Iraq, yet still they pursue an "overwhelming force" policy.
Re:Awesome by Technician · 2004-02-16 04:03 · Score: 1

This is a hugely debatable point. Some historians would argue that the Japanese had already lost the will

Constant slow bombing has always been problems. Decisive action gets results.

Examples are Desert Storm (under pressure at home we left too soon the first time and didn't finish), D-Day, Nicuragua, Panama, and the big event in Japan.

Examples of how not to do it are Desert storm (not properly finished to full surrender in Bagdad), Korea, Cuba, Vietnam... the list goes on and on....

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The truth shall set you free!

I'd go ahead and outlaw this guys by JudgeFurious · 2004-02-15 14:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ok, so maybe that's a tad on the draconian side but seriously, do we actually want just anybody tossing trash into orbit for the vanity of people with more money than sense?

Here's to a very fast bankruptcy for these guys.

--
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.

Re:I'd go ahead and outlaw this guys by LostCluster · 2004-02-15 14:08 · Score: 1

I think their space-radio service is cute, although it's nothing more than a slightly modified version of the infamous star-naming services...

Seriously, they've gotten a couple rockets into a low earth orbit, but not a stable one so the entire vehicle gets vaporized on reentry. The lunar or deep space service depends on their ability to by a little space on larger missions.
Re:I'd go ahead and outlaw this guys by challahc · 2004-02-15 15:14 · Score: 1

I guess you didn't notice, they have star naming too.

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A quarter ounce or less... by LostCluster · 2004-02-15 14:02 · Score: 4, Informative

For those imagining yourself in a coffin in space, try again. Only 7 grams (less than 1/4 of an ounce) is sent up in the full version of their "Earthview" service, which involves a craft that projects the ashes out into "orbit" (not exactly one that can be tracked) while the craft itself vaporizes in the atmosphere. A discount version involves only one gram of ashes.

Other services mention only a "symbolic portion", and its questionable whether they even exist. The only non-"Earthview" activity was purchasing a capsule on a NASA mission that was headed to the moon. I presume their deep space service would be offered the same way...

This is cool... by John+Seminal · 2004-02-15 14:02 · Score: 1, Funny

Then aliens can find me floating around in space and use their technology to bring me back to life.

--

Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."

Re:This is cool... by momerath2003 · 2004-02-15 14:20 · Score: 1

All seven cremated grams of you.

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I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
Re:This is cool... by Spyffe · 2004-02-15 14:31 · Score: 1

Maybe they could use him as fossil fuel.
Of course, he'd be pre-cremated so you'd probably need to put more energy into getting the powder to burn than you get out of the process.

--
Sigmentation fault - core dumped
Re:This is cool... by sydneyfong · 2004-02-15 15:47 · Score: 1

I doubt you'd want to spend a life with aliens.

--
Don't quote me on this.

From A Trekie by mccoy1701 · 2004-02-15 14:02 · Score: 1

I would have figured that this would've been talked about before, after all, Gene Rodenberry was a part of this companies first "mission".

Bad idea by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:03 · Score: 5, Funny

So when Armageddon arrives and all those dead try to rise from their graves while orbiting some far-off celestial body, how's THAT gonna work? It's almost like these guys haven't thought this whole thing through very well.

Re:Bad idea by Odin's+Raven · 2004-02-15 17:19 · Score: 1

So when Armageddon arrives and all those dead try to rise from their graves while orbiting some far-off celestial body, how's THAT gonna work?

Why else do you suppose angels have wings? ;-)

--
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.

Long Term Problem... by flogger · 2004-02-15 14:03 · Score: 0, Insightful

OK, This is just me, I know. But if we start getting burried in space or some firey ball because someone set the controls for the heart of the sun (I'm listening to floyd at the moment--forgive me), Anyway, if we started shooting ourselves in space, then the saying, "To dust you shall return" will not have meaning.

I've always taken comfort that my compost will be used for future generations a millenia from now as I've decomposed and have been sucked up by some plant and eaten by a cow and then either worshiped or eated depending on the part of the world the cow is living at that given time.

Question: how many people will have to be tossed into space, how many resources will have to be tossed into space along with the people to make a difference on the long term resources of our planet?

--
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor

horrid website by seriv · 2004-02-15 14:05 · Score: 2, Funny

You would think for 11K a pop, they could hire a web designer with some talent to make a quality website!!

Re:horrid website by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:12 · Score: 0

You would think for 11K a pop, they could hire a web designer with some talent to make a quality website!!
Look who's talking, pal.
Re:horrid website by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:22 · Score: 0

yes, someone not payed for web design work. Also in high school BTW.

Immortality by digitalhermit · 2004-02-15 14:05 · Score: 3, Interesting

In a few billion years this little wet dustball of ours is going to disappear in a poof of smoke when good old Sol gets middle-aged (insert old fat guy joke here). I want my DNA sent in the other direction. I want my genes to land on some planet (or planets) throughout the galaxy and start new lifecycles. Damn right.

Re:Immortality by Jaysyn · 2004-02-15 14:27 · Score: 1

Uh huh, your vaporized, cremated DNA is going to cause life (and an atmosphere) to magically occur on another planet? How does this work again?

Jaysyn

--
There is a war going on for your mind.
Re:Immortality by jabberjaw · 2004-02-15 14:45 · Score: 1

Why not just cryogenically freeze yourself? Who knows, perhaps some day you will be resurrected and have your brain plopped into a nice robotic body. Bleh... I will leave it at that, I already sound enough like a crackpot for one day.
Re:Immortality by ixplodestuff8 · 2004-02-15 14:58 · Score: 1

Your brain is made mostly of water, when you freeze water expands, when water expands and is frozen, the brain dies. Cryogenically freezing yourself isn't going to work.
Re:Immortality by addaon · 2004-02-15 15:05 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Right... and there's no way to work around this, huh? For someone with a user id under 700k, you ain't so bright.

--

I've had this sig for three days.
Re:Immortality by Pathwalker · 2004-02-15 15:12 · Score: 1

Why choose Alcor? There are cheaper options out there.

For a full body suspension, Alcor charges about $120,000.
The Michigan Cryonics Institute charges $28,000.

Spend the money you save on living a full life now.
Re:Immortality by bersl2 · 2004-02-15 15:15 · Score: 1

To boldly go where no amino or nucleic acid has gone before...

But seriously, we could greatly improve the (already good) chances of life being elsewhere if we seeded the universe with the basic chemicals of life. The whole problem of billions of years synthesizing the more complex building blocks out of the chaos of a young planet could, in theory, be bypassed. I mean, the right elementary chemicals + energy + reducing environment + lots of time ~= life on Earth?

Or am I very mistaken?
Re:Immortality by ixplodestuff8 · 2004-02-15 17:15 · Score: 1

Right... and there's no way to work around this, huh? For someone with a user id under 700k, you ain't so bright.

Of course there is a way to work around it, just like there is a way to work around world hunger, just like there is a way to send a man to pluto, and like the way that it's possible to cure AIDS.

Come back to me when you find a way around it, then you can insult my intelligence.
Re:Immortality by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 21:03 · Score: 0

Which begs the existential question, "what kind of geek produced life on this planet?"
Re:Immortality by StuckInSyrup · 2004-02-16 21:30 · Score: 1

cremated DNA is not capable of starting anything. but you are going to make a nice fertilizer.

--
Ni.

Do it all over again, freeze me ! by MajorDick · 2004-02-15 14:05 · Score: 1

I wanna be froze and shot into space , ala Buck Rogers, 2050, Kahn, ie Countless other scifi flick, BUT I have different goal, I wanna see exactly HOW much I can scre up WORSE the second time around of have a hell of alot of fun trying

Re:Do it all over again, freeze me ! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:30 · Score: 0

wanna be froze and shot into space , ala Buck Rogers, 2050, Kahn, ie Countless other scifi flick

I suddenly had a vision of a parody movie with Mel Brooks at the bridge bellowing "COHEN!!!"

Dubious by PktLoss · 2004-02-15 14:06 · Score: 1

I would have expected a company offering such a service to have a very clear, concise website with clean cut deisgn and style.

The page looks like 15 minutes of an intern's time and the GeoCities EZ-Website-Creator.

I begin to wonder if they could even make it to outer space, down the street seems like a better goal.

On another note, I don't really like the idea of launching biological material around the stars. Wont this kind of thing make it harder to verify discovering 'life' in other places in the decades to come?

--
paul reinheimer

cheaper than regular funeral? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:07 · Score: 0

Heh, dumping corpses into space may be cheaper than proper funeral + burial 6-ft under.

And you can always tell your daughter about where her granpa went: "honey, he became a star." And that ain't a no white lie anymore.

on a serious note... by databeast · 2004-02-15 14:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

..I've always thought that space burials are one of the best ways we have a shot at 'meeting' alien races.

Yes, many of these coffin launches are going to get sucked up into solar gravity wells and burn up, but some are going to get caught in orbits around low-atmosphere bodies or other survivable situations.

My thinking behind this? the universe isnt *that* old compared to its predicted total lifespan; humankind may indeed be one of the 'first races'. By the time enough life-bearing planets produce that cycle, humanity may already be several hundred million years extinct. But putting our 'relics' (ie our corpses) out into the void, where they may survive fairly intact for far longer (assuming they have the sense to vacuum-pack our corpsicles) we stand a fair chance that something out in the distant future is going to find one of these human relics, and if they havent watched enough sci-fi, probably resurrect the human race from our DNA :-)

[seriously, blasting your corpse into space probably has more value to it than any current cyrogenics program, as far as the odds of you being resurrected go, the cost of maintenance,[hopefuly none] and value to the human race (lets face it, most of the people going into alcor drums we probably dont want back!)

Certainly, I'd like to do this, on the condition that the launch params were sufficient to give me a good shot at escaping the sol system limits and not returning to ground as space-trash on one of our neighboring planets.

Re:on a serious note... by KrispyKringle · 2004-02-15 15:19 · Score: 1

I'd suspect the probability of actually reaching some alien civilization is so small as to not be worth discussing. Consider the number of things that have to go right for this to happen, each of which is itself highly unlikely (have to escape the solar system, have to avoid being pulverized on some comet in the Oort cloud, have to actually have alien civilization, have to actually hit that precise planet out of billions of stars, planets, and so forth...
Regardless, they only send up a gram of your ashes, so this isn't quite what you are hoping for.
Re:on a serious note... by danila · 2004-02-15 19:45 · Score: 1

You've read too much science fiction, my dear. Was it Neil R. Jones ("The Jameson Satellite") or Arthur Clark ("2061")?

If you arrange for your body to be sent into space, your chances for revival are very slim. Do you know how big the space is? It pretty fucking big. And the chances for you body to end up in the hands of some superintelligent race can be estimated at 0.00000000000000000. Sorry about that.

I don't know what you have against Alcor patients, but if you just think about your own survival, I hope you will not bet everything on a chance encounter with the aliens, but stay here on Earth, safely stored for a few decades to be revived by your own brethren.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.

Keeping up with the Glens' by thecountryofmike · 2004-02-15 14:08 · Score: 2, Funny

Great, now my neighbors can be better than me even when they die.

Launch my ash... by Paddyish · 2004-02-15 14:08 · Score: 1

...and maybe I'll land on Genesis.

These guys will PAY for your space burial! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:08 · Score: 5, Funny

These guys are willing to pay up to $10,000,000 of your funeral expenses, provided you get your corpse up there yourself!

Re:These guys will PAY for your space burial! by bartyboy · 2004-02-16 12:27 · Score: 1

You also have to bring your own corpse back to get the money.

But I guess your corpse could take about 909 trips (10,000,000/11,000) after winning.

More Questions by PktLoss · 2004-02-15 14:09 · Score: 1

Quotes from site "Kosmos I is scheduled to occur in mid-April 2004..." "A more precise launch date will be specified not less than two months prior to the opening of the launch window on March 31, 2004"

March 31 is less than two months away.

This really just exudes profesionalism.

--
paul reinheimer

Cheap for a reason by calmdude · 2004-02-15 14:11 · Score: 1

There ain't no space ship...they put you with Hoffa.

Up in smoke by Mulletproof · 2004-02-15 14:12 · Score: 0, Redundant

"I want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)"

But you can! For free!! ...In about a few billion years with the rest of the earth.

--
You need a FREE iPod Nano

The decay bateria are hungry! by orthogonal · 2004-02-15 14:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

Science seems convinced that in the early universe, only the elements with the lowest atomic weight -- hydrogen, helium, perhaps a few others -- existed.

Denser elements come into being for millions of years, until the very oldest stars first burnt out, then re-ignited by burning heavy elements, until finally bursting in novas and flinging heavier elements out into the universe.

After many many such novas, eventually enough of these heavier elements were produced to coalesce and form our sun and its planets. One of the heavier elements -- carbon, some 12 times heavier than fundamental element hydrogen -- conveniently arranges itself into the benzene rings of six atoms that are the scaffold for all Earthly life. It is because of this that Carl Sagan said that we were all made of star-stuff.

And after all that work of billions of years to collect heavy elements here on Earth, you want to just throw away all that

oxygen (65%); carbon (18%); hydrogen (10%); nitrogen (3%); calcium (1.5%); phosphorus (1.0%); potassium (0.35%); sulfur (0.25%); sodium (0.15%); magnesium (0.05%); copper, zinc, selenium, molybdenum, fluorine, chlorine, iodine, manganese, cobalt, iron (0.70%); lithium, strontium, aluminum, silicon, lead, vanadium, arsenic, bromine (trace amounts)

by shooting it into space?

Learn to recycle, fer cryin' out loud!

--
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?

Re:The decay bateria are hungry! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:36 · Score: 0

um, One Large Impact from a meteoroid, would more then replace all of the elements. We have sent into space. So you see there is no harm in sending shit into space. And as for Biomatter, non biomatter is constantly being turned into biomatter how did that biomatter get made in the first place. If we mine one large asteroid we'll have more metals then we have ever mined or ever could send into space. The burning of hydrocarbons which are not being replaced is a bit more of a concern.
Re:The decay bateria are hungry! by Idarubicin · 2004-02-15 15:39 · Score: 1

A quick amendment to the comments on stellar evolution. It's the stars ending their lives as supernovas that produce all the heavy elements (heavier than iron), not as novas. (Not all stars reach the supernova stage, and some stars may undergo more than one nova during their lifetime--it's more of a dramatic stellar sneeze.)
Regarding carbon--it's actually not that hard to find even in moderately sized stars. Even our sun--which, though heavier than the average star, is not heavy enough to go supernova--will generate appreciable quantities of the stuff. It is generated in older stars with higher core temperatures and significant helium content, through the triple alpha process.
Meanwhile, benzene is a very interesting molecule, and kudos to Kekule for discovering the structure of the stuff--but it's not likely that it was particularly important in the development of life. It's too stable--it's tough to do anything really bioligically useful with it.

--
~Idarubicin
Re:The decay bateria are hungry! by jkantola · 2004-02-15 20:28 · Score: 1

One of the heavier elements -- carbon, some 12 times heavier than fundamental element hydrogen -- conveniently arranges itself into the benzene rings of six atoms that are the scaffold for all Earthly life.

In Finland, one of the news items for today seems to be the ABC report that 60% of Americans literally believe the bible. 30% take it as an educational story.

Perhaps the remaing ten are the Texan descendants who believe the manna was really oil ...

Fraud by Obscenity · 2004-02-15 14:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

There is always the possibility, that your loved ones will not accually be sent up into space. If the company only TOLD you that your loved one got sent up into space, they could easily make a larger profit margin.

--
OMG OMG OMG WTF OMG WTF BBQ STFU RTFM, OMFG OMG OMG OMG ROFL LMAO OMG WTF STFU ROFLMAO

Re:Fraud by killerbobbarker · 2004-02-15 14:36 · Score: 0

Yeah... and what is the point? Especially if you are cremated. They should at least send your full body out, so there is a chance that it lands on some planet with advanced technology, and they revive your body or clone you or something... Even if the chances are astronomically small... But, as long as the universe does not collapse, you are eventually will fly near a planet that has technology to detect your presence, harvest you, clone you and bring you back to life. That would be sweet. (note, if you are cremated, are there still traces of your DNA left?)

Re: story by earthforce_1 · 2004-02-15 14:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

Actually, flying straight the sun is very difficult.

If you are pushed a hair off course, your remains will go into orbit around the sun, or be blown outward by the solar winds.

Even if you aim precisely at the sun, the ever increasing pressure of the solar discharge will tend to push you off course and away.

--
My rights don't need management.

Cheesy by challahc · 2004-02-15 14:14 · Score: 0

They could at least have a more professional looking web presence. That spam-like page just screams rip-off.

--
01100010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101

we all are.... by Walrusss · 2004-02-15 14:15 · Score: 1

buried here, or sent in space, we're all star dust anyway...

Whats wrong with good ol underground? by mnmn · 2004-02-15 14:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

So everyone will want to send the whole of themselves (not just the egocentric parts), yet cut costs so embalming, clothing will be out of question.

Maybe the geosync orbit will be a belt of zombies visible from the ground, from which dead bodies will occasionally whack the windows of the next space station.

I'd much rather be thrown into the atmosphere, on the night side so people would see a shooting star and make a wish. Hopefully the shooting star will not reach the ground, now that would be messy.

--
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky

Wow by TechnologyX · 2004-02-15 14:20 · Score: 1

70 some replies, and no one has cracked a bad joke about Bush's upcoming space plans, and sending the dead into space

Bush "Cheney.. I'll be back to get you in about 8 years"
*Waves sadly as pod lifts off*

--
Slashdot sucks

Urban Legend? by Fubar411 · 2004-02-15 14:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

Wasn't there an urban legend about an engineer that took some of his buddy's ashes, epoxied them onto a Mars sattelite, and wrote the whole thing anonymously (luckly for me Anonymously is spelled for you in the posting form)?

Sounds like the old Twilight episode by Flexagon · 2004-02-15 14:21 · Score: 2, Informative

For a few more dollars, you could be embalmed in your favorite fantasy.

This is great - I can explore space by saskboy · 2004-02-15 14:21 · Score: 1

If I save enough money I could be the first human to leave the solar system if I convince them to put me on a ship headed outta here instead of being confined to Sol's gravity.

Sure I'd be dead, but I'd be famous...

--
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.

Rip Off by SisyphusShrugged · 2004-02-15 14:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

Read the small print, they send a "symbolic portion" of the cremated body, that could be one speck of the ash, that way you can send up an unlimited number of bodies in one go, sounds like a license to print money to me!

Another rip off is the name a star after you, listed at the bottom as part of the cheaper option, I have researched this name a star after you after hearing it on the radio and thinking about naming one after my girlfriend (she is into cosmology) but after researching it I discovered that all the people do is write the name down in a book that the company has, but the company has no right to name the star (only the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has the right to officially name celestial objects), so all you get is an expensive piece of paper ($50 and up) and here they are charging $300 bucks for that a digital broadcast!!

Tom: No, actually, Helping Children Through Research And Development is the acronym, Mike. It stands for: Hi, Everyone, Let's Pitch In 'N' Get Cracking Here In Louisiana Doing Right, Eh? Now Then, Hateful, Rich, Overbearing Ugly Guys Hurt Royally Every Time Someone Eats A Radish, Carrot, Hors d'oeuvre, And Never Does Dishes. Eventually, Victor Eats Lunch Over Peoria Mit Ein Neuesberger Tod. .

--
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness

Only slightly on topic... by Timmeh · 2004-02-15 14:23 · Score: 1

This reminds me of an anime I've been watching recently. Normally I'm not too big on anime, but my brother was nagging me to check out this new show called 'Planetes' that's currently being fansubbed, so I did, and was pleasantly surprised. It's set in the near future and revolves around a crew of debris collectors who live and work in orbit around Earth. The idea being that in the future, space industry and space resources are so important, and the spaceships needed so prevalent that any small ammount of debris has a very high probability of strking into one of the many vessels in orbit around Earth and cause immense damage. Episode #3 centers around a space casket sent off ~50 years ago that couldn't escape Earth's gravity and had returned.

If you're interested, ed2k links here (if you sing up for an account), bittorrent links here (no signup, probably faster). I'd recommend these guys as far as fansubs go.

My favorite part about sci-fi is when characters are presented in a semi-fantastic/futuristic world where it's just taken for granted that their universe is as such, without making a big deal about it. The focal point has thus far been on the characters, while the world they live in has been mostly taken for granted, so the character development has been quite nice. In addition to that, I like how the series has thus far avoided all of the horrible anime cliches I've become so desensitized to.

Beats eternity in the freezer by Attaturk · 2004-02-15 14:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Space is infinitely big, right? Well, wrap me up and punt me out there! Surely over infinite time travelling through infinite space, the chances of an alien or future lifeform finding my bits are finite.

The little green men could restore my body from its DNA and using technologies our sci-fi writers haven't even yet come up with, they could search through spacetime and match it up to the stream of consciousness, which corresponds to my own when I was alive.

OK so it's not likely. But then again nor is the prospect of a benevolent future human resurrecting you from your frozen head.

I think the conclusion that we should draw from this is that quite simply the universe doesn't want us to be immortal. The old versions of its component modules need to be deleted and replaced by new releases regularly or it stagnates. But the universe also wants us to want immortality too - that way we strive to achieve the most amazing things within our lifetimes. This, after all, is the only option left to us if we wish to be remembered and therefore achieve the closest thing we can to true immortality.

I know, I know - the topic is space burial not immortality but let's face it - most of the egomaniac /. readers (myself included naturally) interested in space burial are a hop, skip and a jump away from admitting their craving for eternal life. Actually I think I just want to live to around 25,000 years old so I can see the conclusion of that Microsoft anti-trust story.

I'll beat that price! by Simonetta · 2004-02-15 14:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

For only $10,000 US (deposited in my Swiss bank account before your transistion to the next world), I will...

receive your ashes from the cremation facility,

and...

Give you a multi-colored ink-jet printed certificate that your ashes will be on the next space-shuttle flight and scattered into low-earth orbit. Where they will cause millions of tiny little twinkles that commemorate your life...

and...

Make sure that your ashes (in real life) don't make a big mess in the parking lot behind my apartment.

Re:I'll beat that price! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:25 · Score: 0

Insightful mod??? The moderators must have a sense of humor themselves these days...
Re:I'll beat that price! by GNUALMAFUERTE · 2004-02-15 16:35 · Score: 0

All you said si an evil LIE!!

It was for only 11.000.

--
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?

Burn on the Sun? by FuzzyFurB · 2004-02-15 14:25 · Score: 5, Informative

Technically if you wait long enough your body will burn on the sun. It is common knowledge that the sun is slowly increasing in size and will eventually (all be it in a LONG time from now) envelope the Earth. If you cryogenically freeze yourself your body won't be destroyed until that day comes. Why pay the extra $ to make it happen now? :)

--
Will Stokes Album Shaper http://albumshaper.sf.net

Re:Burn on the Sun? by CGP314 · 2004-02-16 00:15 · Score: 1

It is common knowledge that the sun is slowly increasing in size and will eventually (all be it in a LONG time from now) envelope the Earth.

You and I Sir, have different ideas about what is `common knowledge'. Go out on the street and ask random people some simple science questions and see how much knowledge like the sun's expansion is common.

-Colin
Re:Burn on the Sun? by AbbyNormal · 2004-02-16 01:52 · Score: 1

Lets do the math shall we?

$10,000 right now versus yearly amount of cyrogenic freezer rent till Sun envelopes the earth. Carry the two..Right now sounds good.

--
Sig it.

Bah! by Spoing · 2004-02-15 14:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

Isn't this nice, like there is not enough garbage in space already...

I don't think you understand the scale of things. Space...is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind bogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

--
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.

Have your kayak and heat it too. by wowbagger · 2004-02-15 14:26 · Score: 1

Here's a sick and twisted thought:

If you were grossly overweight, and had liposuction, and had the fat so removed cremated, would Celestis launch it if you paid the fee?

--
www.eFax.com are spammers

Re:Have your kayak and heat it too. by saskboy · 2004-02-15 15:05 · Score: 1

Why even go that far? Why not clip your toe and finger nails, and maybe your hair. Less painful, less infection, and light as a feather practically. Less flammable too.

--
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.

How do you decompose in space? by read-only · 2004-02-15 14:26 · Score: 5, Interesting

Anybody know how the human body decays in space?

Sorry for the gruesome question, but I'm curious.

Re:How do you decompose in space? by El_Ge_Ex · 2004-02-15 14:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

Anybody know how the human body decays in space?

Actually, the decompression would get you before you had the change to find out. You bones would hold up and maybe some of your muscles. Your other organs wouldn't be so lucky though.

But hey, at least that part of you that somehow stays together will stay intact for the long haul. The cold of space would freeze it pretty quickly.

-B
Re:How do you decompose in space? by nacturation · 2004-02-15 15:04 · Score: 1

I hear Mozart is decomposing his next masterpiece as we speak!

--
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Re:How do you decompose in space? by goon+america · 2004-02-15 16:15 · Score: 1

Your body is mostly water, so in a zero-pressure environment all the H20 in you would convert from liquid -> gas state (aka boiling) which I imagine would be pretty detrimental to your structural integrity.
Beyond that, you might be pretty well-preserved (no nasty little microbes to nibble on you) but I don't know anything about what effects continuous un-atmosphere-filtered solar energy would have.
Re:How do you decompose in space? by Technician · 2004-02-15 20:56 · Score: 1

Quick hint-- Check the boiling point of water at various pressures. Check it's vapor pressure in space. I expect first things to freeze, then freeze dry from sublimination. After you lost all water content, don't expect the remains to be subject to bacterial decomposition. You might retain some ice if you don't get enough heat from the sunny side to make up for the heat lost on the dark side. Anybody know the average space temprature of our satelites in orbit? I think UV exposure would be the biggest decomposition element.

--
The truth shall set you free!
Re:How do you decompose in space? by fredrik70 · 2004-02-15 22:58 · Score: 1

bzzzt, actually, you would live for quite some time (well, you would be consious for around 15 - 20 sec, IIRC. more info here). and you wouldn't freeze that quickly since the only way to get rid of your heat is via radiation, which isn't very effective, cause as cold as it is in space there are not many (cold) atoms around to cool you down, think if a thermos, it has a layer of vacuum in it's bottle as an insulator, space itself is hence a pretty good insulator as well

--
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Re:How do you decompose in space? by Ardillo · 2004-02-16 15:55 · Score: 1

I would imagine that yu would turn into a mummy. There is no oxygen to feed the decay process, and the vacuum would drain all the fluids and air particles from your body rather efficiently. There wouldn't be anything left to react and effect the breakdown process that happens on earth. Your greatest worry, I'm guessing would be stray chunks of space debris that will knock parts of you off into the farther reaches of space. Look at the bright side. You'd get a lot more places that way.

--
Honor belongs to those who dare, not to the critic who sits by and stares

$11k by firstadopter.com · 2004-02-15 14:28 · Score: 1

$11,000 doesn't sound so bad, anyone here up for it? Space burials, who would of thought of this?

--
Best Community for Gaming and Gadgets!

Just the egomaniacal part? by cskaplan · 2004-02-15 14:30 · Score: 1

I want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)

What do you want to have happen to the rest of you?

Reminds me of a twilight zone episode... by Phil+John · 2004-02-15 14:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

...it's Season 1, ep 20, Elegy.

Astronauts land on a planet with lots of scenes from various periods of history but everyone there seem to be frozen in time, it's actually a great big cemetery planet where the rich have their bodies sent to live out eternity.

--
I am NaN

Not ambitious enough by Eric+Smith · 2004-02-15 14:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

I want to burn in the Sun

I want to outlive the sun. Maybe in not exactly the same manner as the protagonist of Charles Sheffield's novel "Tomorrow and Tomorrow", though.

Or maybe burning in the sun wouldn't be so bad. There was another novel whose author and title I can't recall at the moment, in which one of the characters was a human transformed into an entity that could in fact survive in the sun. She discovered that there were intelligent creatures living there that were taking actions apparently designed to shorten the sun's life.

Re:Not ambitious enough by wayne606 · 2004-02-15 15:06 · Score: 1

Sundiver by David Brin? That's a similar idea
Re:Not ambitious enough by Eric+Smith · 2004-02-15 15:44 · Score: 1

Not the one I was thinking of, though it's definitely a great novel.
Re:Not ambitious enough by Ignorant+Aardvark · 2004-02-15 18:26 · Score: 1

Yeah - I read that book somewhat recently. I don't remember the book's title, but I do know it was written by Stephen Baxter (that should be enough information to get the book's title). The character's name was "Lieserl", and she was genetically engineered to grow a year in one day, and upon death, was transformed into some sort of embedded intelligence in a robot thingy that could survive immersion in the Sun.

--
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Re:Not ambitious enough by Eric+Smith · 2004-02-15 19:10 · Score: 1

That was it, thanks! "Ring" by Stephen Baxter, which apparently was an expansion of a short story "Lieserl" in his collection "Vacuum Diagrams". I haven't read the short story.

Save your ashes for a better use by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:33 · Score: 1, Funny

I want mine thrown into Bill Gates' face.

Dunno about this... by dacarr · 2004-02-15 14:34 · Score: 1

What is to do with my body when I'm dead? I won't be needing it. I say just cremate the remains, dump them in the Pacific or something.

--
This sig no verb.

How about composting? by gmby · 2004-02-15 14:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think we all need to be cut into litle pieces and put in the garden (not the food one?). This matter I'm made of is just barrowd; it's not mine, it belongs to the earth. unfortunaly it's not leagle in most countries. I hate to breath others smoke/dust (in the wind)/ash (to ashes) stuff. Keep the air clean, compost your loved ones!

And; No, put in a pine box after being pickeled is not the same!

--
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!

Re:How about composting? by madpierre · 2004-02-15 16:54 · Score: 1

This kind of low impact burial is available in the UK. In fact once you get a registration of death certificate you could (in some local authorities) actually do what you suggested in your post. Not many people do though, prefering the traditional undertaker. :)

--
siggy played guitar

I have a better target by WormholeFiend · 2004-02-15 14:37 · Score: 1

fit my space coffin with one of those ion engine with extra fuel and aim it on the center of our galaxy.

with a bit of luck, i should be able eventually to go through our supermassive blackhole.

my particles will be crushed where no one's particles have been crushed before!

Gene Roddenberry was already 'buried' in space by jebiester · 2004-02-15 14:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

This was already done for Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek founder) in 1997. Just a shame the ashes weren't brought up in the Enterprise.

There's a old CNN article on it here

Re:Gene Roddenberry was already 'buried' in space by otomo_1001 · 2004-02-15 17:35 · Score: 1

You do know the Enterprise shuttle isn't spaceworthy right?

Let's get high by davmoo · 2004-02-15 14:40 · Score: 1

I want to burn in the Sun

When I die, I want to be cremated, then have my ashes mixed in with some good marijuana, and then my friends pass me around and smoke me.

--
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.

Re:Let's get high by AhBeeDoi · 2004-02-15 15:00 · Score: 1

You need to make sure that you're not going to be in the ash tray instead.

Surely not by DrInequality · 2004-02-15 14:40 · Score: 1

The sun is big. I can't believe that the solar wind would push you away before you were crisped.

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DROS - Open-Source Robot Software

dupe by Lavi+DM · 2004-02-15 14:42 · Score: 0, Offtopic

can we send duplicate stories there too?

Enterprise has buried Trek too by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:43 · Score: 1, Funny

..and now that he's gone, Enterprise has buried Trek in space.

NASA-esque mistake! by Flakbait · 2004-02-15 14:43 · Score: 1

Let's see... Short tons minus kilograms...
Are you related to one of the NASA engineers working on that lost Mars probe a few years back?

Seriously, though... does the imballance mean that we're going to end up with earth sliding into a different orbit eventually? Or will it just stay on the same path because the overal mass difference is insignificant, astronomically?

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-Flakbait
Temporary Minister of Propoganda for the Assyrian Empire

Re:NASA-esque mistake! by wowbagger · 2004-02-16 01:53 · Score: 1

I never specified "short tons" - I simply said "tons", which in the usage I was using it was metric tons. It is not required to use the Britishism "tonnes" when referring to metric tons.

And had you read any of the other posts, you would have seen that even hundreds of tons per day is insignificant compared to the mass of the earth.

And if you had bothered to study science at all in school, you would know that the orbit of a planet-sized mass around a solar-sized mass is not significantly effected by the mass of the planet.

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Re:NASA-esque mistake! by AeroIllini · 2004-02-16 12:23 · Score: 1

In fact, the masses of the two bodies cancel out of the equations entirely. The only quantities needed to determine an orbit are velocity and distance.

The only thing changing the mass of one of the bodies would do is to slightly shift the barycenter of the two-body system. Since the Sun is so much larger than the Earth, the Earth-Sun barycenter is currently very, very close to the center of the Sun (on the order of inches).

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Re:NASA-esque mistake! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 12:27 · Score: 0

And if you had bothered to study science at all in school, you would know that the orbit of a planet-sized mass around a solar-sized mass is not significantly effected by the mass of the planet.
If you had bothered to study English at all in school, you would know that the word you were looking for is "affected", not "effected".
Re:NASA-esque mistake! by wowbagger · 2004-02-17 00:30 · Score: 1

Given how nit-picky some folks are on Slashdot, I felt it best to allow for the shift of the barycenter, as well as possible non-linear effects as the mass grows large enough that general relativity starts to rear its head.

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Re: story by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:44 · Score: 0

you're telling me that gravity desn't suck? man, that blows....

Supernova by sjoel · 2004-02-15 14:44 · Score: 0, Redundant

So, how many of you want to be buried in space? I want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)

If you wait long enough, that is going to happen to us all anyway.

Do we have to wait? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:45 · Score: 1, Funny

Can we send up Michael while he's still alive?

Life on other planets?... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:46 · Score: 5, Funny

Years from now, i can see a space rover, digging up bodies on venus thinking "holy god, there was life here once"...

Temporary Vanity by KarmaOverDogma · 2004-02-15 14:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

as these orbits will evetually decay and they'll be ashes-to-ashes, dust-to-dust anyway.

--
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power

Just Drop Into the Sun from Sail Ship by Mad+Man · 2004-02-15 14:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

was Re: Story

Actually, flying straight the sun is very difficult.
If you are pushed a hair off course, your remains will go into orbit around the sun, or be blown outward by the solar winds.
Even if you aim precisely at the sun, the ever increasing pressure of the solar discharge will tend to push you off course and away.

So don't push the body into the sun from orbit.

Do it from a solar sail craft that is hovering over the sun (from a point where light pressure is balanced between gravitational pull), and just drop the body in.

As far as I know, the idea belongs to Bob L. Forward. That's how one of the characters is "buried" at the end of his novel Flight of the Dragonfly (which was later re-published in bloated form as Rocheworld; get the original).

Since the light sail craft was not in orbit, there was no forward component of motion. Thus, when released from the craft, the body was not in orbit either. The only force acting on the body was the gravitational pull of the star.

Re:Just Drop Into the Sun from Sail Ship by LauraScudder · 2004-02-15 14:58 · Score: 3, Informative

The fact of the matter is that from Earth it's much more economical to eject things out of the solar system than into the sun, which is really counter-intuitive. Since most people we know of would ultimately be starting the journey at Earth, it doesn't particularly matter how they manage that last drop into the sun, you still have to ditch all your angular momentum, which takes loads of energy.
Re:Just Drop Into the Sun from Sail Ship by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 18:09 · Score: 0

Too bad people don't want to throw things into Jupiter rather than the Sun. It is much more practical.
Re:Just Drop Into the Sun from Sail Ship by Moraelin · 2004-02-15 19:16 · Score: 2, Funny

Do it from a solar sail craft that is hovering over the sun (from a point where light pressure is balanced between gravitational pull), and just drop the body in.
Or just drop the whole thing in, sails and all, and call it a modern day Viking funeral ;)

--
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Re:Just Drop Into the Sun from Sail Ship by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 15:19 · Score: 0

"Actually, flying straight the sun is very difficult.
If you are pushed a hair off course, your remains will go into orbit around the sun, or be blown outward by the solar winds.
Even if you aim precisely at the sun, the ever increasing pressure of the solar discharge will tend to push you off course and away."

What about the rotation of the sun? As the sun rotates, it twists up space which will make you fly slightly off course. Is it enough to make you miss the sun entirely?

I prefer this Sweedish method by WormholeFiend · 2004-02-15 14:50 · Score: 5, Interesting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3473103.stm

Swedes offer freeze-dry burials
The environmentally-conscientious could soon ensure they don't end up polluting the earth after they die, thanks to a company in Sweden.
Concerns about the environmental impact of embalming fluids or cremation have led Promessa Organic to come up with a chilling alternative.

Their method involves freeze-drying the corpse in liquid nitrogen.

Sound vibrations then shatter the brittle remains into a powder that can be "returned to the ecological cycle".

Biologist and head of Promessa Organic Susanne Wiigh-Maesak said she hoped to promote environmental and existential awareness.

"Our ecological burial reduces environmental impact on some of our most important resources; our water, air and soil," she explains on her company website.

"At the same time it provides us with deeper insights regarding the ecological cycle, and greater understanding of and respect for life on earth."

Compost

After the freezing process, the odourless powdery remains are laid in a coffin made of corn starch and buried in a shallow grave.

Ms Wiigh-Maesak says the soil "turns the coffin and its contents into compost in about six months" which means relatives can then plant a bush or tree on the spot.

The method is based upon preserving the body in a biological form after death, while avoiding harmful embalming fluid
Susanne Wiigh-Maesak,
Promessa Organic

"The compost formed can then be taken up by the plant... The plant stands as a symbol of the person, and we understand where the body went," she said.
Ms Wiigh-Maesak says she would very much like to become a white rhododendron.

The company has applied for a patent on her method in 35 countries.

Ms Wiigh-Maesak said the authorities in Joenkoeping, 328 km (204 miles) south-west of Stockholm, were ready to start operating its first freeze-drying facility in the next couple of years.

The head of cemetery administration in Joenkoeping said younger people were keen on the idea as "green burials" are becoming popular in Sweden.

Re:I prefer this Sweedish method by annielaurie · 2004-02-15 15:49 · Score: 1

This has been my idea since I heard about the method, and I hope it's available here when I slough off the mortal coil.

There's something very off-putting about acre upon barren acre of wilted grass and dead people when live people in cities are stacked up in apartment-boxes and children play on asphalt. We commit our dead to the ground with the ancient words "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," but we fill their bodies with toxic preservatives and inter them in lead-lined coffins and concrete vaults.

There's something very appealing about the idea of a grove of trees and a green, refreshing park where people could enjoy themselves. As I enjoy gardening when I can, I know the value of good compost.

Perhaps my grandchildren could one day gather under my tree and drink a toast in my memory. Or perhaps they could plant my husband's tree somewhere adjacent to mine.

In any case, I hope one day my carcass will be turned into some excellent compost that will enrich the earth rather than polluting it or stealing space from those still living.

Regards,
Anne

--
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
Re:I prefer this Sweedish method by Alan+Hicks · 2004-02-15 16:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Concerns about the environmental impact of embalming fluids or cremation have led Promessa Organic to come up with a chilling alternative.

Why don't they just do what I plan to do?

Decompose.

--
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
Re:I prefer this Sweedish method by starman97 · 2004-02-15 16:49 · Score: 1

I dont think this is any 'greener' than cremation.
It takes a hell of a lot of energy to make liquid Nitrogen from air.

Composting is the most natural way to return to your constituent compounds.

--
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)

Re: story by VValdo · 2004-02-15 14:51 · Score: 1

Quoth the poster: "I want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)"

I know *exactly* how you feel.

Give it 4-5 billion years or so and you'll get your wish.

W

--
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Donald Duck by DonaldDuckBigO · 2004-02-15 14:55 · Score: 0

Donald Duck is going to have a S C R E A M I N G ORGASM when they use his lust for Daisy Duck to launch his body into outer space!!!!

--

Listen in on Donald Duck!

Space Burial Repercussions? by SPYDER+Web · 2004-02-15 14:55 · Score: 1

who knows what kind of problems will happen when we shoot dead people out there...we could be sending out bacteria and diseases to alien civilizations and destroying them all like we did to the native american cultures when we first arrived or even worse maybe alien diseases will combine with the human cells and form the next big plague that ends up wiping us out. Think about it like this, there is nothing in space that would make the body decompose, no air, no bugs, no water or dirt...so the possiblities of this are great. Maybe we might even inavertedly create a new species by accident. In the middle ages in war, they would catapult dead bodies as a sort of biowarfare... Did anyone think of the repercussions of starting biowarfare on outerspace?

--
Trix are for kids!

Re:Space Burial Repercussions? by space77pup · 2004-02-15 15:23 · Score: 1

Do you not read the article before posting? It says they will be sending up seven grams of ashes. Not much chance of spreading death and disease with those.

--
I still miss my ex. But my aim is getting better.
Re:Space Burial Repercussions? by calyptos · 2004-02-15 15:47 · Score: 1

I don't think anything dangerous would survive being cremated (or however you spell it).

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http://illhostit.com/ - Webhosting

Re: story by rhuntley12 · 2004-02-15 14:56 · Score: 1

If he is American it might be easier for bigger objects to not get blown off course.

Spreading life to deep Space by kentsin · 2004-02-15 14:57 · Score: 0

Through the chance are rare, but if this can bring life to other plannet, why not?

Yes and no by roystgnr · 2004-02-15 14:58 · Score: 5, Informative

This is the part you got right:

Actually, flying straight the sun is very difficult.

Yes, it is: to go into an orbit that will intersect the sun you have to kill nearly all your current velocity with respect to the sun. IIRC for the Earth that's about 25 miles per second (plus a bit extra to get you out of Earth's gravity well), which is more than three times as fast this "put your ashes in orbit" mission.

This is the part you just made up:

If you are pushed a hair off course, your remains will go into orbit around the sun, or be blown outward by the solar winds.

There is a reason why light-sail designs call for square miles of material thinner than paper: because unless you've got that much surface area to weight, neither sunlight nor solar wind will change your course very much.

Even if you aim precisely at the sun, the ever increasing pressure of the solar discharge will tend to push you off course and away.

That pressure will increase with the inverse square of your distance from the sun, as does the force of gravity pulling you towards the sun. If you were on course to begin with, you won't be blown off it, certainly not enough to miss a million mile wide target.

Re:Yes and no by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:56 · Score: 0

Actually, flying straight the sun is very difficult.
Yes, it is: to go into an orbit that will intersect the sun you have to kill nearly all your current velocity with respect to the sun. IIRC for the Earth that's about 25 miles per second (plus a bit extra to get you out of Earth's gravity well)

I'm no orbital mechanics expert, but it should be easier than that. First of all, if you're pushing off from Earth, you don't have to increase the perpendicular component (with respect to the sun) of your velocity. You can take off in the opposite direction, so that upon leaving Earth's orbit, you are travelling in the exact opposite direction from the Earth, thus reducing that component of your velocity. (Plus, you don't need extra speed to get you out of Earth's gravity well. Even if you travel at only one meter per second away from the Earth, you will still eventually get outside its gravity well. You only need to reach escape velocity if you plan to reach a velocity and then coast from there on out.)

Second of all, there is a much easier way. You just aim yourself at a planet and slingshot yourself off it to gain some pretty good speed. Then, you fly by another planet and use its gravity well not to change the magnitude of your velocity (although you'll do that too), but to change the direction you're travelling. If you do this right, you can be going straight towards the Sun at a very high rate of speed and with no component of your velocity that is perpendicular to the line between you and the Sun.

Of course, you still have to aim right. If you are going fast enough and you miss the Sun by just 100 miles, you will shoot right on past it. However, it won't matter much. If you fly 100 miles by the Sun, there won't be anything recognizeable that comes out on the other side.
Re:Yes and no by kmac06 · 2004-02-15 16:18 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Plus, you don't need extra speed to get you out of Earth's gravity well. Even if you travel at only one meter per second away from the Earth, you will still eventually get outside its gravity well. You only need to reach escape velocity if you plan to reach a velocity and then coast from there on out.
No. The energy required to achieve escape velocity is the same as going one meter per second. If you're going one m/s, you need to fight the pull of gravity, but if you're going escape velocity you're speed would exactly compensate for gravity.
You just aim yourself at a planet and slingshot yourself off it to gain some pretty good speed. Then, you fly by another planet and use its gravity well not to change the magnitude of your velocity (although you'll do that too),
This wouldn't do anything. You don't gain energy (or velocity) by slingshotting off another planet. The energy you gain going in is the same as the energy 'given back' when you go out.
but to change the direction you're travelling. If you do this right, you can be going straight towards the Sun at a very high rate of speed and with no component of your velocity that is perpendicular to the line between you and the Sun.
This wouldn't work without some sort of guidance system, which would be a lot more expensive. And if they had a guidance system, then it would be easier to just go straight to it anyway.
IANAP (physicist), but I will be in two years.
Re:Yes and no by roystgnr · 2004-02-15 16:47 · Score: 2, Informative

Plus, you don't need extra speed to get you out of Earth's gravity well. Even if you travel at only one meter per second away from the Earth, you will still eventually get outside its gravity well. You only need to reach escape velocity if you plan to reach a velocity and then coast from there on out.

If you travel at only one meter per second away from the Earth, gravity will smack you back into the Earth shortly thereafter, unless you're under constant acceleration (which requires extra deltaV, which I loosely called "extra speed"). If you travel at 25 miles per second away from the Earth under no acceleration, you will of course eventually get out of its gravity well, but by the time you do you will have slowed down slightly.

Second of all, there is a much easier way. You just aim yourself at a planet and slingshot yourself off it to gain some pretty good speed. Then, you fly by another planet and use its gravity well not to change the magnitude of your velocity (although you'll do that too), but to change the direction you're travelling. If you do this right, you can be going straight towards the Sun at a very high rate of speed and with no component of your velocity that is perpendicular to the line between you and the Sun.

You're right; I stand corrected. The guy who replied to you and said You don't gain energy (or velocity) by slingshotting off another planet. The energy you gain going in is the same as the energy 'given back' when you go out. wasn't thinking about different frames of reference: in the frame of reference of the planet you pass your energy is unchanged, but in the frame of reference of the Sun you've gained or lost energy: if your new velocity minus your old velocity is in the direction the planet is orbiting, then some of the planets' momentum is transferred to you; if the opposite is true then some of your momentum is transferred to the planet.

There's a limit to how tight a turn you could make around any particular planet, so I'm not sure if you could kill all your radial velocity from a Hohmann orbit to Venus (or even if you could kill enough to send you to Mercury and from there into the Sun), but you could definitely swing around Jupiter straight into the Sun, and that's at least more fuel-efficient than the direct flight I was assuming.
Re:Yes and no by tylernt · 2004-02-15 17:52 · Score: 1

"If you travel at only one meter per second away from the Earth, gravity will smack you back into the Earth shortly thereafter"

Bull.

If you had infinite rocket propellant and infinite time, you would eventually gain enough distance to break free of earth's gravity. Might take a looong time, but you could do it. Gravity won't magically reach out and snatch you back once you get far enough out.

--
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
Re:Yes and no by moonbender · 2004-02-16 00:50 · Score: 1

Yes, that's what he said. "Gravity will smack you back into the Earth shortly thereafter, unless you're under constant acceleration."

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Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Re:Yes and no by wowbagger · 2004-02-16 02:10 · Score: 2, Informative

The energy required to achieve escape velocity is the same as going one meter per second. If you're going one m/s, you need to fight the pull of gravity, but if you're going escape velocity you're speed would exactly compensate for gravity.

IANAP (physicist), but I will be in two years.

Not if you keep making mistakes like that. Escape velocity is defined as the velocity needed to escape from a gravity well with no additional energy input. True, IF I move a meter per second radially away from the earth, and IF I continue to apply force to overcome gravity, THEN I will escape from the earth (in the limit), HOWEVER that is not "escape velocity" since I am continuing to oppose the force of gravity.

However, IF I want to take a "running start" at it, and then coast, I need to be moving at roughly 7 miles per second to have enough kinetic energy to be able to convert it to the potential energy of being "infinitely far" from the earth (escape conditions).

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Re:Yes and no by kmac06 · 2004-02-16 03:29 · Score: 0, Redundant

Not if you keep making mistakes like that. Escape velocity is defined as the velocity needed to escape from a gravity well with no additional energy input. True, IF I move a meter per second radially away from the earth, and IF I continue to apply force to overcome gravity, THEN I will escape from the earth (in the limit), HOWEVER that is not "escape velocity" since I am continuing to oppose the force of gravity.
However, IF I want to take a "running start" at it, and then coast, I need to be moving at roughly 7 miles per second to have enough kinetic energy to be able to convert it to the potential energy of being "infinitely far" from the earth (escape conditions).
I did not make a mistake, although you may be misreading what I wrote (I admit it wasn't very clearly written). As I said, the energy required to achieve escape velocity is the same as the energy required to keep going 1 m/s away from the earth infinitely far (although you would have the additional kinetic energy of moving 1 m/s, but that's insignificant). The difference of putting all the energy into your initial motion, and the energy required to "fight" gravity is the same.
Re:Yes and no by wowbagger · 2004-02-16 03:52 · Score: 1

OK, I can accept your qualification with an addtional caveat:

While the total energy input to the object is the same if it continues to move at 1m/sec with acceleration, the total energy expended will be greater, as no system will have 100% of the energy going into the object being accelerated.

Even if the object is some form of "ramscoop" so that the reaction mass does not count against the mass of the object, the energy needed to accelerate the reaction mas is greater for a continuous acceleration device than for a single short boost. Consider a rail launcher pushing against the earth vs. a ramscoop. The rail launcher puts relatively little kinetic energy into the earth, the ramscoop puts a LOT of energy into the reaction mass.

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Imagine... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 14:59 · Score: 0

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these... oh wait. Never mind.

Luck-Lee by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:00 · Score: 0

yes, luckly for you... very luckly!

Here we come! by sl0wp0is0n · 2004-02-15 15:01 · Score: 1

Enough of those aliens trying to scare us... it's our turn now by sending the dead people to the space.

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My other dog is a Wienerschnitzel.

Better to burn up... by jellybear · 2004-02-15 15:06 · Score: 1

... than to float away

Re:Better to burn up... by jftitan · 2004-02-16 17:48 · Score: 1

when comming back to earth, as a wishing star, I would wish my falling star would be ass first! Sir, incomming message, it reads "Kiss my ass, world."

--
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"

Am I the only one... by darnok · 2004-02-15 15:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

...wondering how a person can be *buried* in *space*?

Do mourners get to sprinkle a bit of space on the "grave"?

Howstuffworks Entry on Space Burials by oobob · 2004-02-15 15:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

I first read about this in Newsweek a few years ago. Tim Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (I assume that's redundant here) already blasted off, as have a handful of others, including Princeton University physicist Gerard O'Neill, and SEDS and ISU co-founder Todd Hawley. The article describes a 2001 mission:

"For the Encounter 2001 mission, Celestis will place cremated remains into personalized flight capsules that can hold approximately one-quarter ounce (7 grams) of ashes. They will then load these capsules into a canister attached to the upper stage engine. The Encounter 2001 will initially travel into Earth's geosynchronous transfer orbit, an orbit primarily used by communications satellites. When the craft reaches the optimal point in its orbit, ground control will send a command to fire the spacecraft's solid-fuel rocket motor, propelling the spacecraft towards Jupiter. About two years later, the tiny spaceship will fly by Jupiter, using the planet's gravity to propel itself outside the solar system."

Given that a typical funeral costs around $7,000, the price doesn't seem too steep. Save a little more, skip the visitation, and get yourself a rocket.

-Oobob

Space Zombies by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:09 · Score: 0

Maybe later they could develop the technology to turn ashes back into people so we could launch these suckers at aliens and make a amry of space zomibes.
In actuality it's not that bad of an idea to be laucnched into space, but it's such a waste of time, try sending up something worthwhile

Visible from Earth by sielwolf · 2004-02-15 15:10 · Score: 2, Funny

Screw shooting me into the Sun, shoot me to the moon on the non-Dark Side. That way generations of my progeny can look up on a starless night and see my cold grimacing corpse smiling down on them.

Yes!

--
What is music when you despise all sound?

But ... by madpierre · 2004-02-15 15:21 · Score: 1

I thought that in the future Soylent Green (tm) is people.

What happened to cryogenics? Having my head kept in a bucket of
liquid Nitrogen is good enough for me. Keep your new fangled bieng
blasted into space by rockets fad. :)

--
siggy played guitar

Hey, why not be immortalized before your time? by Marvelicious · 2004-02-15 15:22 · Score: 3, Funny

"For those imagining yourself in a coffin in space, try again. Only 7 grams (less than 1/4 of an ounce) is sent up in the full version of their "Earthview" service, which involves a craft that projects the ashes out into "orbit" (not exactly one that can be tracked) while the craft itself vaporizes in the atmosphere. A discount version involves only one gram of ashes."
So, the way I see it, I can save 7 grams worth of pubic hair and toenail clippings and send it into space with this outfit and live on in the stars while I'm still here! Not to mention already living on in the city sewer, my girlfriends sheets, etc...

--
Send whiskey and fresh horses!

The Loved One by SmoothTom · 2004-02-15 15:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

Why was my first thought the 1965 movie (with "Something to Offend Everyone!") The Loved One?

Maybe it was the business with launching dead pets into space for burial, or maybe Aimee Thanatogenos taking that ride, eh?

Hmmmm. I'll have to find a copy of that movie somewhere. Haven't seen it for years.

Learn yourselfs some Fizix boys! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:28 · Score: 2, Informative

If an object is orbiting, all objects, no matter how small that are on it are orbiting independently as well, hence you would have to be propelled very rapidly TOWARDS the sun to counteract orbit velocity and burn.

Humor sense of a cheese eating surrender monkey.nt by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:29 · Score: 0

NT

Space Pollution by Alien54 · 2004-02-15 15:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Before long, someone will oppose this as an example of polluting known space.

or polluting the Sun, conjuring up images of canisters scattered across the solar surface.

;)

--
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"

Re:Space Pollution by nizo · 2004-02-16 02:17 · Score: 2, Funny

like there is not enough garbage in space already...
Oh my God, if we are not careful we could fill all of space with our trash!!! I better hurry and get a bumper sticker for my gas guzzling SUV to express my outrage!

--
I Am My Own Worst Enemy

Trash in space by Lord_Dweomer · 2004-02-15 15:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

Trash in space is going to become a much more serious issue once spacetravel becomes commercialized.

If anybody is interested in an anime which deals with this issue, I HIGHLY recommend Planet ES. It deals with a salaryman in space who works as a space debris collector (futuristic garbageman). Apparently space trash is a HUGE problem in the series, and even a tiny screw floating out in space can kill if its moving fast enough. Very interesting. I wonder how closely our future will mirror this.

--
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!

Re:Trash in space by TheLoneDanger · 2004-02-15 16:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

The anime is okay, but the manga is MUCH better than the anime for realism. It's set in the near future and is much more plausible with more actual science and understanding of what really living in space entails. It has almost singlehandedly (along with the Firefly DVDs) got me longing again for true space travel.

The manga PLANETES is a love letter to space travel. If you love space give the manga a shot.

--

"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
Re:Trash in space by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 21:30 · Score: 0

I've always wondered if this would be one of the ways to bring our society back a few decades in terms of technology: someone launches a rocket loaded with thousands of ball bearings and puts them in orbit around the earth. A ring of debris like this would eventually knock out satellites and other stuff, and there goes the communication network, GPS and other systems.

i have a space venture right here by WormholeFiend · 2004-02-15 15:39 · Score: 2, Funny

for 20$ only, I'll send a few grams of your ashes up in an Estes(http://www.estesrockets.com) powered rocket

wait a few years by shawn(at)fsu · 2004-02-15 15:40 · Score: 5, Funny

"I want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)"

You can do that for free, just wait about 5 billion years.

--
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.

Re:wait a few years by roman_mir · 2004-02-15 17:06 · Score: 1

But you know what is really stupid? I tried to submit 2 articles at the same time. The one you are replying to (it was meant as a joke), and this one And which one makes it? Nuts!

--
You can't handle the truth.

For the moderators by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:40 · Score: 1

Insightful (adj): exhibiting clear and deep perception.

And just because I know for a fact you don't know this already, this post is informative.

Re:For the moderators by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 00:36 · Score: 0

Seemed to me that it was meant to be humourous (i.e. "funny").
Re:For the moderators by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 08:46 · Score: 0

Yes, I was pointing out that my OWN post was informative... otherwise it ran the risk of being modded "flamebait" or "interesting".

Re: story by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 15:45 · Score: 0

Don't worry, just a few thousand years to go and you'll get your wish. The trick is keeping him alive that long!

I'd Only do it if... by OS24Ever · 2004-02-15 15:52 · Score: 1

...they fired my whole body into space and put some type of ion engine like DS1 had that never shuts off until I'm well away from the solar system.

--

As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.

Re:Insurance by Bastian · 2004-02-15 15:52 · Score: 1

I want to make for absolute sure my body burns up in the sun. Billions of years is a lot of time for some wacko scientists to figure out how to move the whole planet to a new star before the sun consumes it.

Obligatory Futurama quote: by MalikChen · 2004-02-15 15:57 · Score: 2, Funny

Reminds me of a Futurama quote, where the crew went to Fry's ancestor's grave in the sky.

"The closest to heaven they'll get..."

Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by rjh · 2004-02-15 15:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

it DID cause the cold war

More accurately, it kept the Cold War from becoming hot. The Cold War was going to happen regardless of whether we dropped a nuke or Martha Stewart on Hiroshima. The US and the USSR were (are) both ideologically expansionist powers, in that each wanted to see its ideology adopted by the rest of the world. When two expansionist powers come into conflict, there's going to be a cold war and most likely followed by a very hot one. Unless, of course, both sides know that a hot war would be a literal hell on earth, thus giving both sides a strong incentive to not start a hot war.

Did we come close to nuclear war in the Cuba embargo? Damn straight. Why didn't we exchange nukes? Because both sides were reluctant to.

For the first time in the history of the world, we've invented a weapon which has not been used for over fifty years. That has never happened before.

I actually rather like the Bomb. It's a simple, one-question choice: are we as human beings morally developed enough to be allowed to continue existing?

It's a one-question exam, scored pass or fail. So far, humanity has made the right choice. I think that's rather hopeful, myself.

If any other country committed such an atrocity against another as the United States did to Japan, we would have World War 3

I see. So we could either kill 250,000 Japanese (and several thousand Korean slave workers who were in Hiroshima when the Bomb hit, and several thousands of other nationalities, too) in two attacks so terrible, so catastrophic, so Wrath of God, that the Japanese surrendered... or we could go forward with Operation Olympic and kill millions of Japanese and millions of Americans.

After the Nagasaki bomb hit, the Emperor was willing to surrender. Do you know what his aides' response to this was? They tried to murder him so that he wouldn't be able to surrender; and without an Emperor who could sign a surrender, it would've condemned Japan to decades of warfare. That's how hardcore, how serious, the Japanese generals, warmongers and militarists were: they wanted the world to end.

By nuking two cities, the United States forced a surrender.

Was dropping The Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a war crime? I don't know. I genuinely don't know. No matter what arguments you make for it being a war crime, there are powerful and compelling arguments that not dropping The Bomb would have been a greater crime. And no matter what arguments you make in defense of The Bomb, you cannot argue away 250,000-plus people wiped out in an instant, their shadows etched onto the sides of buildings.

I have no answers. I only appreciate the spectacular difficulty of the question. That you have found easy answers strongly suggests to me that you have no appreciation of the question.

In the end, humanity is advanced more by people who have no answers than by people who have answers without understanding the questions.

Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 16:08 · Score: 0

Dude, that's pretty twisted to say there's an argument that not nuking Japan would've been a war crime.

That the most fucked up thing I've heard all day.

Obviously it's bad to kill people, and civilians in war even worse, but to say that it could be a bad thing to not kill people? WTF?
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by rjh · 2004-02-15 16:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Given our other option was Operation Olympic, which would've resulted in (conservative estimate) five times as many dead? Yes, I think a case can be made that not dropping The Bomb would have been a war crime.

Under the Geneva Accords, a nation is obligated to conduct war in such a manner as to minimize the depradations, casualties, loss of life and property damage to non-military targets. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were apocalyptic attacks, yes. Olympic would have been worse.

So by that metric--if we had a choice which would have left Hiroshima and Nagasaki as flaming cinders, but the rest of the mainland mostly untouched, or a choice to do a mass invasion which would have left the entire island chain aflame and smoking, it would be a war crime to not choose the atomic option.

In the general case, of course it makes no sense to say "not dropping a nuke is a war crime". It's absurd. Balderdash. Ludicrous insanity.

But in the context of "our options are drop a nuke or else kick off Operation Olympic"... not dropping a nuke (i.e., going the Olympic route) could be viewed as a war crime.

It's a spectacularly difficult question.
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by bobobobo · 2004-02-15 16:34 · Score: 1

Well the bomb basically gave the Emperor an excuse to surrender w/o showing weakness. However do not forget that Russia got into the Pacific Theatre I believe it was two days prior to the Japanese surrender. Russia was one of Japan's oldest rivals. They had much to lose and were indeed fearful of their neighbors to the north. It is my opinion that Russia getting invloved had a a greater influence, as the Japanese war generals, were willing to sacrifice every man, woman and child. The bomb merely let them save face.
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by miu · 2004-02-15 16:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

By nuking two cities, the United States forced a surrender.
In the 19th century civilian population centers and industry had become such an important part of a nation's ability to wage war that they were viewed as valid military targets. Some people use this belief as an argument that nuking those cities was okay. That still leaves the question of why we could not have selected a pure military site to nuke - the damage caused would not have been as great, but Japan would have been able to see what sort of weapons we had available.

--

[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by moosesocks · 2004-02-15 16:58 · Score: 1

I completely understand that Operation Olympic would have been a much worse course of action, and that the Japanese themselves committed far more atrocities than the US did.

However, before the bombs were dropped, Japan was willing to surrender under the stipulation that they got to keep the emperor. We refused, and demanded unconditional surrender, and nuked them.

Then they surrendered. We let them keep the emperor anyway.

I'm also saying that the way we handled the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was dishonorable. In Afghanastan, we warned the civillian population which cities we would bomb 24 hours before the bombing.

We could have done the same thing to Hiroshima, and possibly could have significantly reduced the death toll. Same thing for Nagasaki - bombing the two cities just DAYS apart from each other was also a bit harsh.

Now, on to the USSR. Sure, a cold war may have been inevitable, but, when Stalin heard about the nukes we developed, couldn't you imagine that he'd be just a little pissed off (and frighened) at his closest ally for hiding such a powerful weapon?

--
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by Ggreg · 2004-02-15 17:20 · Score: 2, Informative

By nuking two cities, the United States forced a surrender.
I'm amazed no one has posted a challenge to this assertion. Few historians accept this justification of history's worst act of terror uncritically. The Japanese were trying to surrender anyway.
This article is a good starting point for anyone interested in the facts of the matter.
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by rjh · 2004-02-15 17:21 · Score: 1

However, before the bombs were dropped, Japan was willing to surrender under the stipulation that they got to keep the emperor.

Not true; Japan was willing to come to a settlement which would end hostilities, but leave the Emperor in place along with the cabal of militarists who were responsible for the Pacific war.

The U.S. quite reasonably said no: "the only surrender we will accept is one which completely dismantles the government which started this war."

After the Emperor unconditionally surrendered, we did just that: we dismantled the government which started the war. The Emperor was allowed to remain on as a figurehead, completely divorced from power. Japan was forcibly turned into a democracy, and for the last 50 years Japan has been a responsible and mature member of the international community.

So no, we didn't "let them keep the Emperor anyway". We forced the Emperor to publically disavow his status in Japan as a deity; we forced him to recuse himself from politics; we forced him to get rid of his advisors and make them available for war-crimes trials.

None of that would have happened if we'd accepted their initial settlement offer.
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by TheOnlyCoolTim · 2004-02-15 17:23 · Score: 1

There was a warning. It wasn't on the level of the exact city chosen, but that was understandable, because we did not have the ability to fly over Japan unimpeded like we did in Afghanistan.

Tim

--
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 18:34 · Score: 0

How nicely written but not well thought out:
"So far, humanity has made the right choice"
But its not humanity as a whole is it? It a select few that make these choices in our name. Quite obviosuly, none of the general population of any nation would want to use such an disgusting weapon.
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by miu · 2004-02-15 20:54 · Score: 1

That's how hardcore, how serious, the Japanese generals, warmongers and militarists were: they wanted the world to end
I believe this to be the reaction of all powerful men (especially old men with less life to lose) when the circumstance that allows them power is threatened. Tell me you don't believe that Rumsfeld and Cheney would burn down the world before allowing the US to be eclipsed.
At least in the case of the Japanese militarists a bit of justice was done and showed us why the military must be a tool of policy and never its master. Someday I think we will learn the same thing about business.

--

[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 21:03 · Score: 0

The firebombing of Dresden killed many more people, so would you call that the "worst act of terror?"
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 01:28 · Score: 0

It's something of a false dichotomy - there were many other options that could have been employed: nuke Hiroshima but not Nagasaki, nuke somewhere smaller than Hiroshima, nuke an uninhabited island or a nearby area of sea and say "next time it's somewhere serious"...
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by eatdave13 · 2004-02-16 03:43 · Score: 1

YHBT.
YHL.
HAND.

--
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by rjh · 2004-02-16 07:15 · Score: 1
The Japanese were trying to surrender anyway.

The article you're linking to is a good one: unfortunately, it's not all that good for your position. As it makes clear, what the Japanese were pushing for was a settlement, not a surrender. A settlement means "a negotiated end to hostilities". A surrender means "you win".

Moreover, the settlement the Japanese were pushing for would have kept the Imperial system in place... namely, the same Imperial system which started the war. Japan was objecting to the Emperor being turned into a figurehead--they wanted him to remain as their deity--and objecting to the prosecution of Japanese military leaders for war crimes. The United States' response to this was a blunt "no: you can either abolish this deific cult around the Emperor and dismantle the political system which caused this war, or you can die. Take your pick. We're past caring which one you choose."

One thing I'm unclear on in the article you linked to is how the term "unconditional surrender" is vague. In matters of international diplomacy, "unconditional surrender" is one of the clearest and most precise terms out there. It means you put down your arms, admit your defeat, cooperate with the victors, and make absolutely zero demands of your own. It is the ultimate form of surrender, and for that reason it happens very rarely. I do not understand how the words "unconditional surrender" can be interpreted as anything other than a clear and unambiguous (if exceptionally stark!) demand.

The United States demanded unconditional surrender primarily, I believe, because unconditional surrender would be a necessary prerequisite to dismantling the Imperial government.

Basically what it amounts to is this:
- We gave the Japanese a choice between a surrender which would dismantle their government, or protracted war
- The Japanese said "how about we stop fighting and we each keep our governments"
- We interpreted that as meaning they'd chosen protracted war
- We annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to no greater degree than we annihilated Tokyo, just with far fewer bombs
- Hirohito decided maybe getting rid of the government was a better option than continued atomic bombardment
- The goons surrounding the Emperor decided they'd rather see the war continue
- The goons surrounding the Emperor tried to assassinate him before he could deliver his recommendation to the Cabinet
- The assassination failed
- The Cabinet received the Emperor's request
- The Cabinet approved the unconditional surrender of Japan
- The United States dismantled the Imperial government and turned the Emperor into a pure figurehead, with no cult of religion nor personality
- And for nigh-on sixty years Japan has been an outstanding member of the international community.
... What I find interesting that, for all your talk of how Japan wanted to surrender, the article you linked to never mentions the word 'surrender' when describing Japanese peace offers.

"The Russians had been the only major nation with which Japan still had a neutrality pact, and, as such, had been Japan's main hope of negotiating a peace with something better than unconditional surrender terms..."
Note the phrasing: negotiated peace, not surrender. The Japanese were not offering surrender, just an end to hostilities. There's a big difference... as the essay you linked to compellingly argues:

"Unfortunately for all concerned, Japan's leaders were divided over precisely what terms should be sought to end the war, with the Japanese military leaders still wishing to avoid anything that the Allies would have considered a clear 'surrender'. Surely Japan's leaders hold the lion's share of the responsibility for the fate that befell Japan."
Do we have responsibility for what happened to Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Yes. Does Japan have more responsibility? Yes.

Wor
Re:Your easy answer is, alas, too easy. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-17 20:29 · Score: 0

Your casualty estimate of "millions of Japanese and millions of Americans" needs a bit of refinement.

Let's look at the possible justifications for dropping nuclear devices on mainland Japan:

To win the war? The war was already won strategically, the peace process having already been begun at the time.

To prevent millions of casualties on both sides? Projected casualties for Operation Olympic, as predicted by senior military staff, ranged from 25 000 to 45 000. Subsequent, increased casualty predictions were made by politicians, not Generals.

To show off their shiny new toy to the Reds? Hrm.....

After all, if they hadn't nuked Japan and gotten a 10-minute surrender, Russia might have had time to get its commie paws on Japan, as it had Germany.

Note the phrasing: negotiated peace, not surrender. The Japanese were not offering surrender, just an end to hostilities.

So it's unreasonable to expect the leaders of the Japanese empire to have sought out the best solution for themselves? I don't understand your point here.

Do we have responsibility for what happened to Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Yes. Does Japan have more responsibility? Yes.

You make some good points, and yes, Japan was responsible for its own defeat in WWII because it made a conscious decision to start a fight. But the assertion that the Japanese Empire was responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is diametrically false. There were numerous, non-criminal ways in which the U.S.A. could have easily won against the Japanese. In fact, the Japanese had already conceded military defeat and were actively negociating for peace when they were nuked. [1]

World War Two was a horrible period of human history, one in which even good nations did terrible things in order to prevent terrible nations from doing things even more atrocious. [...] And note: these were the good guys.

While Germany, Russia and Japan were certainly in the grips of terrible and atrocious regimes during WWII, calling the allies "the good, guys is a bit of a stretch -- even for the more 'virtuous' among them. [2] War is war, and the winners win. As Mae West said, "Goodness had nothing to do with it".

EOF

[1] While the supposed dilemma of "should we bomb or not" is a classic and controversial one as popularly presented, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is/was unambiguously and incontrovertably a war crime according to the terms of the Geneva Convention.

[2] Of course, my metric for judging a nation 'good' is probably overly harsh. I cannot think of a single nation since Magellan's circumnavigation of the Earth that I would qualify as consistently good (except perhaps for the tiny ones like Monaco, Andorra, Biafra, Tibet, East Timor et al, which may only be good because they don't have the longevity/independance required to 'do bad'). The Benelux nations and New Zealand come the closest in recent times, IMHO.

What a dumbass! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 16:08 · Score: 1, Funny

Isn't this nice, like there is not enough garbage in space already...

Yeah, and there's so little space out there we're in danger of filling it all up.

Gosh, we wouldn't want to pollute the hard radiation filled expanse of dust, gas and Sun spew now, would we?

Mars landing by dialsoft · 2004-02-15 16:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

I think that it would be great to be buried in space with a trajectory towards a planet that one day you will be either discovered there or your dna or whatever part of your decomposed body could contribute to the evolution of life on that planet in 22342342 million years.

rock on

You've missed the point. by abiggerhammer · 2004-02-15 16:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

Which is: is it worse to kill 250,000 in an instant to prevent the possibility of millions more being slaughtered over the course of months, or to save those 250,000 at the cost of a long, slow, brutal war?

I don't have a good answer for that, myself. I don't have any answer.

--
Dance like nobody's watching. Sing like you're in the shower. Fuck like you're being filmed.

Funny? by Chuck+Chunder · 2004-02-15 16:19 · Score: 1

Insightful I reckon.

--
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park

I say we change the name of that planet by Rhinobird · 2004-02-15 16:26 · Score: 1

Let's change Uranus to Urectum to end that stupid joke.

--
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla

I want the tornado-in-a-can burial by iainmcphersn · 2004-02-15 16:27 · Score: 1

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/11/125522 9&mode=thread&tid=126

Part? by AvengerXP · 2004-02-15 16:34 · Score: 2, Funny

"I want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)"

Oh i guarantee you will burn in your wholesome completeness sir. Not just that Egomaniacal part. In fact, you won't even get there you'll burn much much sooner.

--
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!

Panspermia problems? by penguinland · 2004-02-15 16:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

So here's a question: Let's say that this company launches someone's remains into orbit. 200 years later, we discover what appears to be burned organic matter floating through our solar system. How do we know if it's from this company? How do we know if it came from another planet that could have life on it? This is the same sort of reasoning that led us to crash the Galileo probe into Jupiter: so we don't contaminate other parts of space with terrestrial stuff. IMHO, this company is not thinking ahead, and making a huge mistake. What do others think (preferably others who know more about this than I do)?

--
"Flying is the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing." - Douglas Adams

Re:Panspermia problems? by kenp2002 · 2004-02-16 08:38 · Score: 1

Jupiter is a gas giant, I'm not worrried about "contaminating" a sub-nuclear glob of gas. Take a gander at the specs of Jupiter. Now if they ramed it into one of the moons that might be a "opps" but are you seriously worried about contaminating gas giants in our back yard?

--
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-

The History by Chronoch · 2004-02-15 16:44 · Score: 1

Actually, I wouldn't mind being a person that might be dug up thousands of years from now. That would be the ultimate memorial--thousands of people studying you, pondering where you came from, what you accomplished in life, your patterns of living, your art, your music, your loved ones.

History is important. It teaches us how we have progressed as a species and human entity, the extrapolation of which can be used as a human exercise for analysis of fundamental global problems.

How we choose to dispose of ourselves after our existence ends is an important personal decision. As such, any burial ground or internment area is sacred not only to the thoughts of the ethereal people around you, but also to the history owed to the people that are our descendants.

A cemetery is certainly not a landfill.

Such conviction! by jigyasubalak · 2004-02-15 16:49 · Score: 1

Are we being graced by Mr.Hawking?

--
The best planning can be done after the project completes.

PlanetES by Hecatonchires · 2004-02-15 16:49 · Score: 2

Anime about trash collectors in space. Set in the future (of course). In one episode they have to bring in a coffin - it used to be fashionable to be buried in space, but now it's illegal and a hazard.

Good show.

--

Yay me!

burial of heroes by Kris_J · 2004-02-15 16:50 · Score: 2

I want to be atomised by that whooshy thing the stargate does when a wormhole forms. :)

$50K gets you cryonics & possible future revi by Cryofan · 2004-02-15 16:56 · Score: 2, Funny

You can sign up with www.Alcor.org for a cryonics contract for only 50K (fundable through life insurance payments) and get a chance at a future revival.

And if revived in the distant future, you can ride in a spaceship and look out the window at all those 100K space caskets roaming around space.

Myself, I prefer a chance at life to a certain death....

--
eat shiat and bark at the moon

FRAUD! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 16:57 · Score: 0

FRAUD ALERT!
Gene Roddenberry's ashes were sent on a U.S. Space Shuttle courtesy of NASA! It had nothing to do with Celetix or whatever BS this is. I doubt any of this is real. And look at their website, just bleeds quality for an organization that has SATELITTES! NOT BSBSBSBSBSBSB WANNG

Re: story by roman_mir · 2004-02-15 17:12 · Score: 1

I am taking you with me.

--
You can't handle the truth.

just a question by DaMieN+MeRCuRy · 2004-02-15 17:14 · Score: 1

as we keep launching shit out into space, isn't the earth's mass decreasing? won't that fuck up our rotation?

not really by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 17:17 · Score: 0

Actually there are several verses referencing gathering the dead from the earth, the sea and the 'heavens'. (also translated 'sky')

A few good questions... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 17:25 · Score: 0

If my remains are on a rocket that explodes before it reaches space, do I get a refund?

What happens when you break a legal contract with a dead person?

Is being shot into space really considered a "burial"?

Getting shot into the sun or the moon is good and all but could they shoot me off to Europa or some other equally small, distant target?

It's bad enough humans have such low self-esteem.. by vicparedes · 2004-02-15 17:33 · Score: 1

That we have to subject aliens to our own feelings of inadequacy.

Once they hear we have penis enlargement pills, breast enlargement pills, and all natural herbal viagra alternatives, they'll be pouring in.

Slashdot III, the Search for Smack by gwayne · 2004-02-15 17:44 · Score: 1

Boldly going where no moron has gone before. Select one of these catchy phrases to have encoded on your trans-life conveyance:

(1) I actually paid $10K for this cruise.
(2) What do you mean it's a one way trip?
(3) See, you can take it with you.
(4) If you find this capsule, please return contents to the third planet.
(5) Don't open unless you can revive me.

zzzzzzz

Worrying about "space garbage"? by Futurepower(R) · 2004-02-15 18:02 · Score: 2, Funny

As long as someone is worrying about "space garbage", there are a few galaxies we need moved. They are blocking the view in that direction.

Meteor Shower by Tablizer · 2004-02-15 18:18 · Score: 2, Informative

If they dump your body low enough, it will eventually re-enter the atmosphere and burn up, creating meteor showers. That way it won't become permanent space junk.

Little kids would then sing songs like, "Twinkle Twinkle Grandpa Jones, Watch The Sky Burn His Bones....."

--
Table-ized A.I.

slingshot... by imsabbel · 2004-02-15 18:34 · Score: 2, Informative

You CAN gain velocity AND energy by doing a slingshot around a planet (But you need a 3 body system, so a slingshot around the sun wouldnt increase your speed...)
Sadly, to prove it, you need a lot of calculations in center of mass systems, ect. (Was the nastiest stuff in the "newton"-part of theoretical physics I, lagrange was much more easy).

In end effect, you can reduce the kinetic energy of the planet on its way around the sun and transfer it to yourself by placing yourself in a "low part" of the combined cravitational and ratational potential behind the planet in its rotation.
While you are there (during the slingshot), you are "pulled" by the planet and gain speed (and the correct integreation shows that there is a net gain)

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HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?

Re:slingshot... by AeroIllini · 2004-02-16 12:12 · Score: 2, Informative

Your bit about gaining velocity by slingshotting around a planet is spot on. The orbital energy you gain is the same as the orbital energy the planet loses, but since the planet is so massive, it's velocity hardly changes at all (Kinetic energy is one-half the mass times the velocity squared ... and the planet's mass certainly doesn't change during the manouver).

Flybys work like this: The planet you are approaching is orbiting the sun at some velocity (about 30 km/s for the Earth). As you approach, you enter the planet's "sphere of influence," meaning the distance at which the effect of the planet's gravity on you is stronger than the effect of the Sun's gravity. Your velocity when you enter the SOI determines the curve of the hyperbolic orbit around the planet. You fly around the planet and exit the SOI at a different angle than when you started. Your exit velocity will be the sum of your hyperbolic velocity (with respect to the planet) and the planet's velocity (with respect to the Sun). Picture throwing a ball off a moving train, and measuring the speed of that ball from the ground, not moving. Throw the ball forward at speed x with respect to the train, and it's moving faster than the train with respect to the ground, and vice versa. You can tailor your exit and entry angles as to adjust your overall velocity (since entry and exit velocity with respect to the planet are both the same).

Of course, the same thing happens around the sun, but since we never leave the Sun's SOI (with the possible exception of deep space probes) we can't adjust our velocity with respect to it. In other words, in order for a spacecraft to "slingshot around the Sun" it would have to have started on an orbit around the center of the Galaxy and entered the Sun's SOI, nearly perpendicular to the Sun's galactic orbit, and exit the Sun's SOI moving forward along the Sun's galactic orbit.

All of the above assumes a completely unpowered orbital trajectory. If the spacecraft were to fire engines at any point, the story would change dramatically.

By the way, I'm an Aerospace Engineering graduate student with experience in orbital mechanics courses.

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I'll wait till they work out the kinks. by Cruciform · 2004-02-15 18:49 · Score: 1

Being buried in space sounds cool and all that, but how do they keep the dirt from just floating away from the coffin when the dump it in the hole? :P

burning in the sun by Anonymous+Squonk · 2004-02-15 18:52 · Score: 1

want to burn in the Sun (or at least the egomaniacal part of me.)

Won't we all burn in the sun eventually?

How about diamonds... by Fiz+Ocelot · 2004-02-15 18:57 · Score: 2, Informative

Cremation diamonds http://www.cio.com/archive/010103/18.html Yes, now you can wear your loved one on your finger, or pawn them off!

Painful by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 19:20 · Score: 0

Muslims believe that your soul stays in your body for a short time after death, so you can still feel something, like pain.

Ergo, don't get cremated or donate your body to science.

burn in the Sun by benjonson · 2004-02-15 19:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

I want to burn in the Sun...

OK, you can moderate this off-topic, but I just want to get this off my chest: why not shoot nuclear waste into the sun? Permanent disposal. Obviously it would have to be put in containers that were disaster proof. But it would get rid of the stuff once and for all and so remove the final (strong) argument against nuclear power.

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Re:burn in the Sun by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 03:47 · Score: 0

Unfortunetly that can cause more of a problem. Throwing nuclear waste into the sun can actually maybe cause the sun to implode and go supernova.
Re:burn in the Sun by MrNerdHair · 2004-02-17 10:06 · Score: 1

Utter FUD. No data to back it up either. The size of the Sun is so utterly large to make our _entire planet_ totally worthless in comparison.
Re:burn in the Sun by MrNerdHair · 2004-02-17 10:08 · Score: 1

Because of our shitty rockets. No, really. 9 out of 10 times (probably more) they work as they are supposed to, but what happens when the rocket explodes in the upper atmosphere? Chernobyl all over again.

Re: story by Delucian · 2004-02-15 20:04 · Score: 1

Or just wait a few trillion years for the Sun to turn into a red gas giant and then everyone will be incinerated. :)

good book to read by CAIMLAS · 2004-02-15 20:20 · Score: 1

If any of you like thriller books, grab Dan Brown's Deception Point - it talks about the commercialization of the space industry. Brown's best book so far, IMO. A lot of the things mentioned in the book should be fairly familiar to your average slashdot reader.

He also wrote the books "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons". All his books are fairly well packed with various trivia - the guy must be a walking encyclopedia of rare knowledge.

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~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers

Re: story by cmacmanus · 2004-02-15 20:43 · Score: 1

I agree. Slashdot just isn't the same, very inane editors these days. Oh well..

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100 kgs -average?- by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 21:54 · Score: 0

wow. you must be american.

New religion? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 22:02 · Score: 0

So, do I get a sure ticket to heaven if I just pay few dollars? Wow, that's original.

Re:$50K gets you cryonics & possible future re by dasunt · 2004-02-15 22:34 · Score: 1

The odds are probably pretty slim for cryonics to actually work.

OTOH, any odds are good odds for the dead, right?

Not like you can take the $50k with you anyways...

And hey, it does fund some research into preserving body tissue.

Become a shooting star by gringer · 2004-02-15 22:35 · Score: 1

Alternatively, you could opt to have your body ejected in the upper atmosphere in such a way that the body burnt up on re-entry. This would remove the problems involved with space junk, and create a nice light show for the people below.

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Ask me about repetitive DNA

Rubbish Bins by Laudatortemporisacti · 2004-02-15 23:29 · Score: 1

We need more black holes. They'd suck up all our rubbish that we chuck into space so that we wouldn't have to see it, and give a few years, they'll spit it all back out on us for being such idiots in the first place.

what if? by Tellarin · 2004-02-16 00:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

what if one of these bodys manage to get to the surface of a non-habiteted planet? wouldn't that "contaminate" the planet?

and what if this body reaches a planet with simple life forms, probably the bordy will have some bacteria or virii, that could be a big hazard to native life

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-- SouNerd.com

me..me.me.. by Sivaram_Velauthapill · 2004-02-16 00:12 · Score: 1

I want my ashes to orbit Saturn...my favourite planet.. how much will that cost? :)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

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Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places ;)

an alternative by beforewisdom · 2004-02-16 01:07 · Score: 1

Would be to spend about $200 to be cremated.

You could then give the other $10,800 to your relatives or to a worthy charity.

They can make use of / and or enjoy that money.

You can't.

Steve

Not our Sun by IPFreely · 2004-02-16 01:33 · Score: 1

Hey, that's good news. I didn't want to go into our sun anyway.

I want to be dropped into a super giant star. That way when it collapses, I could find out what really happens inside a black hole.

--
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.

Don't these guys watch Anime ? by Prozzaks · 2004-02-16 02:11 · Score: 1

All the viewers of PlanetES know how burdensome and dangerous objects floating in space can be.

What do you think will happen if a spacecraft were to collide with a cadaver floating in space? How much time and effort, not to mention millions of dollars, would that waste? The best part of it all is that each collision has the potential to create even more debris.

For those who haven't seen PlanetES yet, here is the URI for the torrents : Anime Empire

I'll do it for free by fuzzybunny · 2004-02-16 02:22 · Score: 1

...or at least for the cost of the really sturdy metal box and 50 pounds of TNT.

I'll make my money charging admission to see the first privately-launched man in space (did the X-Prize say whether he has to be alive when he gets there?)

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Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage

Drake equation by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 02:30 · Score: 0

yep, if only a fraction of a percent of all the alien civilizations (predicted to exist according to the Drake equation) respond to space-spam, we should have an intergalactic well-endowed federation in no time.

Frank Poole by tr0llb4rt0 · 2004-02-16 02:33 · Score: 1

In 3001 they'll go around picking up dead folks in space and reviving them.

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Worst .sig ever!

I'm sorry it's had to come to this... by Xophmeister · 2004-02-16 03:02 · Score: 0, Redundant

All your corpse are belong to us

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Christopher Harrison

Space Burial???!! by pablo_max · 2004-02-16 03:02 · Score: 1

So what, have they found a way to rip a hole in subsapce and shove you in there? How the hell do you have a space burial?

cryonics odds are unknown, but logical case good by Cryofan · 2004-02-16 03:26 · Score: 1

No one can say what the odds are. No one has been able to construct a mathematical estimation of the odds, other than saying the probability of success is a product of multiple independent factors (total probability == (prob of no society breakdown)(prob of dying "good death")(prob 1)(prob 2)....

But the logical case for cryonics is actually quite strong. If we agree that the human being (however you define it) is wholly contained in the brain and that hte brain is information, then we can say that in order to acheive revival, that information must be recovered to a certain extent. Well, to WHAT extent? If I code and then decode a book, and lose one word, have I recovered the book? How about if I lose 2 words?

Let me ask you something: if you are in some hypothetical situation where you would lose your life unless you pass through a particular device, and this device functioned so as to remove from you some unknown portion or percentage of your memories and/or other knowledge contained in your brain, would you refuse to go into the device and lose your life, or would you go through, and save your life, but sacrifice that unknown percentage of your memories/knowledge? What if the percentage of lost memories/knowledge were 1%? 2%? 5%? When do YOU become NOT YOU? At what percentage?

So, if we agree then, that even if you lose some relatively small percentage of your memories, then you are still YOU, then it comes down to if and when a sufficient percentage of that information can be recovered from your brain by future science. What does the "sweep of history" tell us about the progression of the ability of science to recover previously unknown information? A good analogy seems to be the science of cryptography. When you code some information, such as a message, it is lost to everyone except the holder of the code. But if the code is broken, the information is recovered. Take a look at the history of cryptography: has there been steady progress in this field?

I would say yes. Every year the boundaries of cryptography are pushed back. So we see a steady progression in increase of capability in that field. But will the science needed to recover the frozen brains progress fast enough to recover the brains before they deteriorate? Most estimates gives the brains more than 10K years before background radiation destroys them (shielding could prolong that period).

So, is 10K years (or even longer) enough to recover a sufficient percentage of that frozen information? At that point in time, where the two graphs intersect (the graph of ability to recover, and the graph of brain viability), recovery occurs.

See www.alcor.org and www.merkle.com for more.

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eat shiat and bark at the moon

A better idea by FSK · 2004-02-16 03:28 · Score: 1

I always thought it would be kind of cool to have myself preserved (maybe by being incased in Lucite) with some artifacts from this era. I'd like to imagine archeologist thousands of years from now finding me and being able to learn something about the 20th/21st century.

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When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.

Re: story by PaschalNee · 2004-02-16 03:28 · Score: 1

>Actually, flying straight the sun is very difficult.
Tell me about it. When I wake up in the morning it is in the east and when I go to bed at night it is in the west. Talking about aiming at a moving target ...

Garbage... by jav1231 · 2004-02-16 03:33 · Score: 1

I always felt this would be great for getting rid of garbage. More directly, sending it on a trip to the sun. I meant actual garbage, but I suppose dead bodies could work. But I would prefer to be buried myself.

So what is so bad about wanting to live forever? by Cryofan · 2004-02-16 03:44 · Score: 1

Sounds like a natural to me! And BTW you can get a cryonics contract for $100/month on the installment plan. See www.alcor.org

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eat shiat and bark at the moon

Ashes to Ashes... by Systems+Curmudgeon · 2004-02-16 03:51 · Score: 2, Funny

Ashes to Ashes, Earth to Berth, Dust to Distance.

Space Burial by alakrant · 2004-02-16 04:00 · Score: 1

It wouldn't be so bad. You wouldn't be orbiting long and would tumble back to earth with your ashes spread around the world. You wouldn't clutter up space too long. If they are shooting the remains into deep space, who cares? There is plenty of room there.

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WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above, as I am schizophrenic, and don't know if it was me that typed it.

Light Shows by jellyfish_green · 2004-02-16 05:09 · Score: 1

Conversation started by my wife, last week, while commuting, after watching "The Shipping News":

"When you die, have you thought about whether you want to be buried or cremated?"
"Cremated. Less room and less money."
"But would you want your ashes buried with me, or taken back to Canada, or what?"
"Hmm.."
"You wouldn't want them to be just scattered, would you?"
"I've got it! How about putting them into a really big firework, and exploding them across the sky?"
"A...firework?"
"Yeah! Everyone attending would be looking up, and BOOM! there he goes."
"That's stupid."
"And of course there would be lots of drinking at the wake, and reminiscing about the big explosion I made."
"..."
"I suppose if the explosion were REALLY big, you'd have a few shattered windows within the blast radius. You could pay for those out of the money you save on a burial. Although the noise could cause a few heart failures in elderly people... hmm, a funereal chain reaction..."
"Shut up now."
"I wonder if mixing me with a spoonful of actual napalm wouldn't go astray?"
"I'm going to put on a CD, ok?"

He may have misunderstood me by roystgnr · 2004-02-16 05:46 · Score: 1

What I meant to say was "unless you're under constant thrust"; of course you could keep that thrust low enough that it exactly balances gravity and you're not accelerating.

Of course, if I wanted to be really pedantic I could point out that 0 acceleration is a constant... ;-)

Re: story by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-16 05:54 · Score: 0

Troll.

Garbage in space? I'm not a freaking toaster! by hesiod · 2004-02-16 07:55 · Score: 1

> like there is not enough garbage in space already...

Like there is not enough garbage buried in the ground already. Seriously, you wanna talk about overpopulation? If we gave every person dead & alive a burial plot for the next 1000 years, the world will be one giant cemetary. The only forseeable problem with this is that if it took off in popularity, we lose earth resources (in the form of a mammal/the chemicals that make it up) for each person we send off. What we SHOULD do is cremate them & throw their ashes on their kids' land to put those resources back into nature instead of putting them in a airtight box to keep nature from doing its part in the cycle of light.

Introducing Alien Races to Humans by Ardillo · 2004-02-16 15:25 · Score: 1

If we are introducing ourselves to aliens, shuldn't we provide them with a proper introduction to a burial? Maybe a little freeeze dried beer or whiskey and instructions on how to give a wake?

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Honor belongs to those who dare, not to the critic who sits by and stares

SIGN ME UP! by arothmanmusic · 2004-02-16 15:45 · Score: 1

I have said from day one that I didn't want to rot in the ground, be burned to a crisp, chopped up, embalmed or dismembered. I want a form of burial where my body is preserved as it is when I died... if they could chuck me out into space without cremating me first, I'd pay $10K for the priveledge.

Collisions? by TonyMeatballs · 2004-02-17 04:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

Not that it seems like a huge problem, sending a few bodies into earth orbit, but does this company actually monitor, or know exactly where in earth orbit these bodies are going? I can imagine the headlines one day when a spaceshuttle has a hit-and-run with a body in orbit nobody expected to be there

491 comments