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Human Remains Are Headed to the Moon, Despite Objections
Just before the launch of a privately built moon lander, partially funded by NASA, the mission is being criticized for a portion of its cargo: the ashes of dozens of people receiving “space funerals.”Because of the human remains, the president of the Navajo Nation wrote to the heads of NASA and the Department of Transportation in late December to request that the launch be delayed. The objection lies in the fact that traditions of the Diné (the Navajo people), like those of many Indigenous peoples, hold the moon sacred. Sending human remains there can thus be seen as an act of desecration. The controversy echoes an incident that NASA faced in the late 1990s but with new twists brought about by today’s global, commercially aided moon rush, and it highlights how uncertainties about what can and can’t be done in space are as vast and gray as the moon itself.
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Human Remains Are Headed to the Moon, Despite Objections
The Navajo Nation has called for a delay in launching the commercial lander Peregrine, which is set to carry human remains on a private mission to the moon