In life, Donna Jeanne Chapman had her feet firmly on the ground. But the Rancho Cucamonga loan officer and secretary always had her eyes on the stars.
“There were times when I would talk to my mom on the phone and she would stop and say ‘Oh, the stars look so beautiful tonight’ or ‘the moon is so full,’ ” said her son David Cobb, a Burbank audio engineer. “You could be in the middle of a serious conversation and she’d stop to talk about the sky.”
When Chapman died last November at age 66, her son wanted to go beyond the usual memorial services for his mother.
“When someone leaves, you don’t stop showing your love for that person,” Cobb said.
And then the mortuary handling Chapman’s funeral arrangements told Cobb about Celestis. The Houston-based company sends human remains into space aboard commercial rockets.
On Sunday, Dec. 24, a rocket carrying a capsule the size of a watch battery, containing a gram of Chapman’s ashes, is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral. The rocket will first circle the moon, then send a lander with cremated remains down to the surface as part of Celestis’ “Tranquility” mission.
The remains of Chapman and others will then make their way to one of the Lagrange Points — a spot along Earth’s orbit where the combined gravitational pulls of the Earth and sun will keep the capsule in stable orbit for millions of years, as part of Celestis’ “Enterprise” mission. At that point, those remains will be further from Earth than any human has ever been.
“They will outlast every earthly memorial that has ever been placed or ever will be placed,” company President Colby Youngblood said. “Our clients are securing the longest-lasting memorial that a person could secure.”
Remains of 223 others will be permanently slipping the surly bonds of Earth on the flight, sending their remains to the moon or sun. Among them are “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife and cast member Majel Barrett Rodenberry, “Star Trek” cast members James Doohan, DeForest Kelley and Nichelle Nichols, and NASA astronauts Philip Chapman, Gordon Cooper and Michael Lampton.
Chapman had grown up watching “Star Trek” with her father and passed her love of space on to her son, joining clubs that sent the two of them monthly astronomy lessons that they’d save in notebooks, working on space-related science fair projects together and stargazing through telescopes.
“Without her love for space, I wouldn’t have my love for space,” Cobb said.
And Chapman isn’t the only Southern Californian whose remains are scheduled to be going into space later this month.
“Our customers come from all walks of life,” Youngblood said. “We have customers who are school teachers, truck drivers. We also have, on the other end of the spectrum, former astronauts, astrophysicists, world travelers, adventurers. But what they all have in common is a love of science fiction — particularly ‘Star Trek’ — or space, astronomy or the love of adventure. One of those things is the common thread for all of our clients.”
Former Huntington Beach resident Robert “Bob” I. Selin will also be aboard the Tranquility Flight to the moon.
Nearly five years earlier, he circled the moon on a previous flight, his wife Wendy Selin said, but this time is going up there for good.
“It was his wish to get to space,” Selin said. But more than that, “he always wanted to land on the moon.”
The couple were students at University of Denver in 1969 when Apollo 11 landed men on the moon for the first time, she said. They marveled at the new possibility.
“It was kind of an enticing thing,” Selin added.
Her husband died in 2013 from colorectal cancer at age 64. He’d planned ahead of time for some of his ashes to ultimately be launched to the moon, Selin said.
The family signed up for the out-of-this world commemoration 10 years ago, but the trip Bob Selin specifically wanted wasn’t available at the time. He flew around the moon on a previous Celestis mission in 2019, but came back to Earth until the journey he longed for could be made.
The urn containing the rest of his ashes is buried at a family grave site in New Jersey.
Bob Selin had a lifelong career in aerospace engineering, starting with Hughes Aircraft Co., then at Boeing Satellite Systems for more than 30 years, even after his retirement as a consultant for the company. It’s all finally culminating in a place he was most fascinated by.
“It’s a tribute to what he’s done all his life,” Wendy Selin said of the spaceflight.
Other Southern Californians whose remains are scheduled to embark Sunday on the journey to the moon or interplanetary space include:
- Reda Anderson of Beverly Hills, a former IRS appeals officer and real estate developer, whose remains will be on the Enterprise mission to interplanetary space
- Mayo Broussard of Hollywood and Palm Springs, a former paint contractor, whose remains will be on the Tranquility mission to the moon
- Roxanna Marie Lake of Westminster, a former Air Force master sergeant, whose remains will be on the Tranquility mission to the moon
- Mary Ann Ritsuko Nishisaka of Huntington Beach, a former Northrup Grumman manager, whose remains will be on the Enterprise mission to interplanetary space
- Mitchel Thomas Jr. of Tustin, a former aerospace engineer for McDonnell-Douglas and L’Garde, whose remains will be on the Enterprise mission to interplanetary space
- Brandon Elliot Toh of Pasadena, a former sound editor, sound designer and suicide prevention volunteer, whose remains will be on the Enterprise mission to interplanetary space
Chapman from Rancho Cucamonga didn’t leave any instructions for what she wanted for her memorial or funeral, but her son is confident that she would have approved.
“I can feel now that she’s excited about it,” he said. “There’s been something special about it.”
Celestis offers four choices of services, sending human remains on suborbital flights, into Earth orbit, the moon’s surface and into interplanetary space orbiting the Sun. The Dec. 24 flight will be the first time the company has sent remains — along with DNA from company staff — to the moon and sun. Prices range from $3,000 for a suborbital flight to $13,000 for a permanent stay on the moon or in orbit around the sun.
“If you look at the average cost for the American funeral, it ranges between $13,000 to $15,000, so it’s in line with the average American funeral,” Youngblood said.
There’s no doubt in Cobb’s mind that this will be worth it.
“My mom gave me the world,” Cobb said. “So I’m giving her the universe.”
Staff writers Annika Bahnsen, Ryan Carter, Olga Grigoryants and Erika Ritchie contributed to this story.
More space stories
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- NASA Capt. Victor Glover returns to Ontario High to share his journey
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Source: Orange County Register
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