Cape Cod woman honors father's love of space by sending his ashes into orbit
BOSTON - A Cape Cod, Massachusetts woman will honor her father's lifelong obsession with outer space by sending his ashes into orbit around the earth this spring.
Lifelong love of space
"His soul is already up there but let's put his ashes up there too," said Melanie Sharrow.
David Lavender was a news photographer and editor on Cape Cod who worked with NBC. Sharrow remembers her father fondly.
"He would let me press buttons and help him edit, I was his little apprentice," said Sharrow.
She said ever since he was a child, he was obsessed with space, having grown up during the space race of the 1960s. He was also a huge fan of Star Trek, a love his daughter inherited.
"He bought me toys and we would launch little model rockets," said Sharrow.
Lavender died by suicide in 2021.
"He had a lot of trauma and he tried his best," said Sharrow. "I see him as the strongest person that I know."
Ashes will orbit the earth
He's now destined for the great beyond. In April, his ashes will launch into orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It's thanks to the company Celestis, which attaches people's ashes to rockets and satellites heading into space. In the 90s, they got a NASA scientist buried on the moon. And this past January, they sent Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols into deep space along with some of her colleagues, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
This will actually be the second attempt to launch Lavender's ashes into space. Last year, the first satellite burned up prematurely.
"They will orbit earth typically for five years and then returns like a meteorite, like a shooting star," said Charles Chafer, the co-founder of Celestis. "The family can track his progress orbiting the earth on our website."
"If he's overhead, we'll know it and we can be able to go out there and just wave up to the stars," said Sharrow.
