The USA is about to blast some dead presidents into space

DNA belonging to past presidents of the US is set to be blasted into space later this year.

Celestis, a US space burial company which sends remains out of the Earth’s atmosphere, is planning to include symbolic remains from George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in an upcoming flight.

All four will be included in the company’s upcoming Enterprise Flight, which will also pay tribute to Star Trek performers Nichelle Nichols and DeForest Kelley.

A number of figures who have brought iconic sci-fi series and films to life will also be celebrated.

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DNA and cremated remains from Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry will be included in the craft, as will VFX expert Douglas Trumbull, who was known for his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The DNA will be launched inside a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket at an unconfirmed date in 2023. The Enterprise Flight will travel anywhere between 93 million miles and 186 million miles as it travels outside of the Earth-moon system.

Sci-fi icons are being honoured with the upcoming space flightiStock

The journey will celebrate four of the most notable presidents in US history. Washington was a Founding Father who became the very first president of the United States in 1789. Eisenhower, meanwhile, was the 34th president from 1953 to 1961 after serving as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during WWII.

Kennedy served from 1961 until his assassination in 1963, while Reagan served from 1981 to 1989.

The flight was announced in a post from Celestis CEO Charles M. Chafer, which read: “Celestis, Inc., the pioneer and global leader in memorial spaceflights, announced today that in honor of Presidents’ Day and some of the nation's greatest leaders, they will be launching what we believe to be authenticated DNA of American Presidents George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan on their upcoming historic Enterprise Flight, humanity's first deep space time capsule. This, in turn, will make it the first time in history that any president has gone to space in any fashion symbolically or otherwise.

Reagan is one of the presidents whose DNA is being sent into spaceMichael Evans/The White House/Getty Images

“These hair samples, which were originally from the Louis Mushro collection, along with the associated Certificates of Authenticity, were gifted to Celestis by an anonymous donor for the purpose of being included on a deep space mission. Louis Mushro was a well-known celebrity hair collector and appraiser who built a global reputation as the expert in this field before his passing in 2014. These hair samples have been in a climate-controlled facility for several years in preparation for this mission.”

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