Let each choose his own.
Give up and hide in your cave, and you are dead already.
I sincerely disagree. The only valid question is whether the time is right - that's something you can argue about.
Exactly the other way round. The rituals are solely for the benefit of those still living to better deal with their grief and loss.
I suppose strange requests could become an inconvenience. But Hunter Thompson's request that he be sent up as fireworks for his friends to observe and enjoy, for example, seems less an inconvenience and more a thoughtful gesture to those he left behind.
So it all depends on the request, I guess.
I assume that other religions offer explanatory contexts for their rituals as well. These may or not make sense when transferred to a modern secular society.
I think at its basic level there is something along these lines: change is uncertain, the group is here to witness the change and the group is not startled, I'm ok because the group is ok.
Isn't that thought more tantalizing than being buried on Earth?
Wrap the body up, strap a 4-kilo rocket on it, say some nice words, and off she goes. No new technology or engineering required.
Unfair question, but it's how I feel: Does NASA always have to have some great new over-engineered plan for every little new thing they come across?
Anyone being sent into space is well aware that they have about a one-in-twenty chance of not coming back. They are selected and trained on the understanding that if they become unwell in space, they could jeopardise the lives of their fellow crewmen.
Repatriation of remains is an unaffordable luxury in space and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. No-one with the constitution to be an astronaut would allow their own death to hamper a mission.
As to whether Mars is worth dying for - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/390933.stm
One man, one way to Mars. There's no need to carry a body then.
That would have been my choice anyway.
