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Virginia May Help People Pay For Space Burials
PolygamousRanchKid writes "Want to be buried in space? Virginia would help pay for it under proposed legislation that aims to boost the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.
The bill, which the General Assembly will debate next year, would provide a Virginia income tax deduction up to $2,500 a year for such burials. Proponents hope the measure will provide revenue for the spaceport, which is expanding because NASA decided to cancel the space shuttle program. The facility, which describes itself as a 'full-service, FAA-licensed spaceport,' is located at Wallops Island on Virginia's coast."
If they are in space then they will become space ghosts because GOD can't get to them there, like it says in the BIBLE GOD does not exist outside of the Ionosphere that is the line of the Italians who will drink all our water from space with dead people. Besides, they smell and PASTA need I SAY MORE!!!!
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They want to encourage development of the space port. That's a reasonable goal I guess.
Doing so by subsidising what is surely the most pointless reason to launch something into space and also the most wasteful way to dispose of a human body is just stupid.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Perhaps if you'd taken the time to RTFA before rushing to get first post, you'd have realized they're cremated first.
Screw that. I want my meat-sack like body launched whole into space when I'm dead!
Om, nomnomnom...
I haven't found a state or province that will allow my family to burn my body on a traditional pyre. I have written the specifications for how the funeral pyre is to be constructed and the protocols to be observed.... yet, all of it, should it be played out can only be done in secret... possibly in the deserts of california (we're working this out as I type.)
Who gets to make the tax deduction? And if it's on the dead guy's estate, why per year? I mean, how many times to they expect a person to die in Virginia, anyhow?
"$2500 a year" it says. Just how many times will they allow a dead person to be shot into space?
"Today, we say farewell to Uncle Bob's left arm. We're all thankful knowing it will be joining his torso and the rest of his limbs in heaven. Amen"
"Psst! Aunt Sally, no more tax breaks, please. We're all sick of driving out here to see yet another funeral/blast off."
Even fine cremation ashes at orbital velocity can damage satellites.
Are you sure you've researched this? You seem to have missed a lot.
That's like saying it's okay to junk-up our orbit with space debris. "It's just for a little while", yes, then, people will pay more and expect justice from their government when they demand to be put into a stable orbit. "You condoned it for them, so me, too!" Burial in space should necessitate being put on a tracjectory that would actual take you into OUTER space, not in orbit around the Earth.
Okay, I would accept one stipulation: your container has to be highly magnetized. Whilst in orbit with the rest of the junk, you will have to do some sweeping up and junk collection on behalf of a grateful Earth. Then, when you re-enter, you can bring the junk in with you and you can all incinerate together.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I want to be cremated by the very atmosphere that sustained me!
-- no sig today
Support for a budding enterprise might be worthwhile, but what socio-economic benefit is there from disbursing cremated ash in space? If I was a VA taxpayer I'd be wondering what I'm paying for.
Presumably the spaceport is primarily for putting up satellites, which can be useful infrastructure.
Why subsidise a frivolous use of rocket fuel instead of satellites?
The article doesn't talk about it, but such cremated remains are encased in a small capsule.