Space Ash Vs. Cryo
Celestis, Inc. says it did:
the first ever private launch into outer space (1982),
the first private, post-cremation memorial spaceflight (1997),
the first lunar burial (1999)
Its prices range from $12,500, for standard service to put “one gram of cremated remains, first priority, into deep space,” to $40,000 for “preferred services” to put “seven grams of cremated remains, first priority, into deep space.” They currently have the cremated remains of 115 men and 21 women launched or waiting to launch. (Thanks to Sun Cho for doing the count.)
Compared to cryonics, the ashes-into-space industry has over half as many delivered customers, collected in a far shorter time and with far less free publicity. While cryonics is on average more expensive, the cheapest cryonics option, $28,000 via CI, is cheaper than the most expensive ash launch.
While space-ash customers are even more male dominated, and probably just as tech nerdy, my intuition guesses they suffer far less “hostile-wife phenomena” than cryonics. (Will someone please check?) And I’d guess this reduced hostility has much less to do with costs than image – cryonics freaks folks out more. Why?
The obvious explanation is that people think cryonics might actually work – frozen folk might actually live again someday. This is what elicits ghoulish feelings and objections – that cryo wannabes are selfish and arrogant, that it blocks closure, that the future won’t want them, that immortality is immoral, that population is already too large, etc. Since they don’t fear space-ash folks will live again, wives don’t object as much to space-ash plans.
If so, this really is modern male sati – it is the prospect of their husbands living longer than they that most upsets hostile cryo wives.
Curious's reply suggests he doesn't get the point of his own comment. The issue isn't that people divorce their partner for purchasing a product that doesn't work. You're right that that is not a good explanation for cryonics divorces. However, you tried to explain the differing adoption rates of cryonics and space burial as a result of marital pressure. But there are lots of simpler more obvious explanations for the different adoption rates, the most obvious one being that customers know space burial works. It also isn't that different from regular burial. It is a little eccentric but probably near universally regarded as a romantic and acceptable burial service. As such it is likely that men as well as women would find space burial more pleasant than cryonics. Therefore it is plausible the fast adoption rate of space burial is just due to more men liking it than like cryonics.
It isn't clear to me why this is a meaningful comparison. One is a burial service the other is an attempt at not dying. All the reasons people don't adopt cryonics apply save the cost issue.
And btw I'd like to see some evidence that space burial customers are "probably just as tech nerdy" as cryonics patients. My gut reaction is that space burial customers are probably just absurdly rich more than they are tech nerdy. I imagine plenty of people who don't read science fiction would still think getting rocketed out into space is still a bad ass way to go.
There is a misconception that most people signed up for cryonics are techno-nerds. This characterization is accurate of those, the activists, who are actively involved in the cryonics organizations themselves. However, most of the rank and file members are not techno-nerds at all and they almost never have any involvement with the day-to-day operation of the cryonics organizations.
For example, Alcor cryopreserved a retired television repair shop owner on the day Robert Heinlein died in May of 1988. This guy was not a techno-nerd at all.
Check out "The Door into Nowhere" by Mike Darwin on "page 16" of the following text link:
http://www.alcor.org/cryoni...
You do not have to be a techno-nerd to want the open unlimited future. I think everyone who has commented on cryonics here should read this document. I think it provides insight into character.