Honor? It’s out of this world.
Woman’s DNA shot into space, to orbit sun forever
Enrica Amore, known as Rickie, taught history in Hamden and New Haven schools and loved to travel, bringing her family to Mount Vernon, home of George Washington, and to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
She was also “very forward looking and she was always interested in seeing women be successful and have careers … propelling women to new heights,” said her daughter, Dawn Amore, who now lives in Washington, D.C.
Enrica Amore died in 2019 at 75.
Today, all those interests are combined in an unusual way, as a tiny bit of Enrica Amore’s remains are headed into deep space aboard a rocket, along with the DNA of Washington, Kennedy and several of those associated with the original TV series.
It’s the Enterprise Flight, the first deep space mission for Celestis Inc., a company that offers families the opportunity to send their departed loved ones’ remains out of Earth’s atmosphere. People can send their own DNA into space as well.
Previous flights have gone to the moon or into Earth orbit. Enrica Amore, however, will orbit the sun, forever.
“The launch itself was just an outstanding experience,” Dawn Amore said of the day in January when the rocket carrying her mother’s remains took off. Dawn Amore is a big “Star Trek” fan.
“I didn’t expect to feel the sense of solace that I did,” she said. “We all think of heaven being up above and she’s actually up above. It brought me a sense of peace I wasn’t expecting. Really.”
The feeling hasn’t gone away in the three months since the launch.
“I still feel that way,” she said. “I smile every time I look up and think about her, and I think that she’s having a great time.”
Besides the DNA from hair follicles of Washington and
“(Enrica Amore was) very forward looking and she was always interested in seeing women be successful and have careers … propelling women to new heights.” — Dawn Amore, daughter of Enrica Amore
Kennedy, there are small discs contain cremated remains of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Nichelle Nichols (Nyota Uhura on “Star Trek”), Deforest Kelley (Leonard “Bones” Mccoy) and James Doohan (Montgomery Scott).
Gene Roddenberry has had his remains shot into space before, according to Celestis CEO Colby Youngblood.
“She would have been thrilled when Celestis announced that they had included DNA from John F. Kennedy and from George Washington, because those were her two favorite presidents,” Amore said of her mother.
She also “loved the idea of space travel” and “was very closely following the James Webb space telescope development,” Amore said, though it didn’t launch in Enrica Amore’s lifetime.
Amore said she learned in a documentary about Nichelle Nichols that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged Nichols not to leave “Star Trek” after the first season and that Nichols then “recruited women and minorities for the space shuttle program in the late ’70s and early ’80s,” including three members of the doomed Challenger crew.
“I’m the one with the big interest in ‘Star Trek’ specifically,” Amore said. So when she saw Nichols’ remains “were going to be added to the solar system mission that was called the Enterprise Flight, I was like, Oh my God, I have to do this for my mother.”
The flight wasn’t cheap. Amore said it cost $15,000 (Youngblood said it was $13,000).
“It was absolutely worth it. Celestis did a beautiful job,” Amore said. “They had a memorial service. I met Gene Roddenberry’s son; I met Nichelle Nichols’ son. They had guest speakers. They brought in Eileen Collins, who was the first woman space shuttle commander. So I got to meet fantastic people.”
Youngblood said the Enterprise Flight is “about as permanent a memorial as you can get.”
“It’s actually going to be still within our solar system, but it’s considered deep space,” he said. “It’s going to be orbiting between Venus and Earth in what’s called a heliocentric orbit. It’s orbiting around the sun, literally forever.”
The capsule will keep orbiting no matter what happens on Earth, Youngblood said.
“Once it gets to that final orbit, it’ll change its name to the Enterprise Station,” he said. “It’s got 264 flight capsules. Some have people’s cremated remains, some have people’s DNA, there are pieces of artwork, some small, some put on SD cards, like digital memory, all that would fit in our flight capsules.”
Celestis operates by finding a commercial rocket company, such as Space X, and renting space for its capsule.
“Several rocket providers offer what’s called a rideshare program … nothing more than renting off space on the rocket,” Youngblood said.
“The Enterprise mission is on this rocket called the Vulcan, which is kind of cool, because we had nothing to do with that name,” Youngblood said. “And it’s just by happenstance, but the rocket provider was United Launch Alliance.”
Celestis has completed 22 memorial flights, the others either orbiting the Earth, landing on the moon or coming back to Earth and the remains returned to loved ones, Youngblood said.
The company began firing people’s remains into space in 1997, starting with Gene Roddenberry, he said.
“Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who was the wife of Gene Roddenberry, was the first person who signed up” after that flight, he said. “Our founder and CEO, Charlie Chafer, she made him promise her that when it was her time to go that he would send her ashes along with Gene’s.”
Bits of Gene Roddenberry’s remains have gone into space more than once, Youngblood said.
“He was on our very first mission back in 1997, called the Founders Flight. And that’s where everything started, because Gene was going up on that flight, Majel was there at the memorial service, and made Charlie promise … And then 27 years later fulfilled that promise on this particular flight.”