Hair samples from JFK, 2 other presidents headed to deep space

The hair samples of three U.S. presidents are set to launch into deep space later this month.

The Houston Chronicle reported that hair samples from presidents John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Washington will be aboard a flight headed for deep space before the end of the year on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. The mission will be organized by Celestis, a company that specializes in sending cremated remains and DNA samples to outer space.

“It is absolutely feasible, from a scientific point, that future researchers can find this flight capsule and study what’s in it,” Colby Youngblood, president of Celestis, told the Chronicle. “We feel it’s an honorable tribute to those three presidents to put them on this first historic mission.”

Celestis said in a press release earlier this year that including DNA samples of the late presidents could help people way in the future learn more about U.S. history.

“Off-world DNA storage allows the human genome to be preserved for thousands of years in space without degradation,” the company stated. “This means it is possible it could be discovered later, like a cosmic “time capsule.” This could allow future generations to learn more about the U.S. forefathers millennia into the future.”

Celestis has sent DNA and cremated remains into space before. It advertises itself as helping families “commemorate the lives of their departed loved ones” through memorial spaceflights starting at nearly $3,000.

The DNA samples of the three late presidents will be on Celestis’s Enterprise Flight, which is named in honor of the television series “Star Trek.” It will also be carrying the ashes of the series creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry and a DNA sample of their son.

“We’re very pleased to be fulfilling, with this mission, a promise I made to Majel Barrett Roddenberry in 1997 that one day we would fly her and husband Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry together on a deep space memorial spaceflight,” Celestis co-founder and CEO Charles M. Chafer said in a statement last year.

According to the website, the mission will “launch more than 150 flight capsules containing cremated remains (ashes), DNA samples, and messages of greetings from clients worldwide on an endless journey in interplanetary space.”

The flight was expected to take off in the early morning of Dec. 24, but the CEO of United Launch Alliance said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that it may launch at a later date.