A woman has shared how she sent her parents ashes to be scattered 100,000 feet up in space – after finding a letter from her late mum with the unusual request.
Susan Viggars was devastated when she lost mum Beryl Hales to breast cancer a decade after her dad, Stanley, died of a sudden heart attack.
The 48-year-old was left to decide what to do with both of their ashes when she came across a letter her mother had penned her.
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“I found it weeks after she died, Sellotaped into the top of a box in her bedside table,” Susan, a forensic scientist from London, told What’s The Jam.
“I knew there would be one, somewhere.”
After 65-year-old Stanley passed in 2012, they found letters he had written them both to express his love, which inspired Beryl to do the same for Susan.
In 2015, she added a handwritten note to share her hopes for the future – including the rather unusual request.
It reads: “I have a thought, the rest is up to you…to be blown sky high in a rocket with Dad, together with a glass of something good and a cheer!”
Susan asked other family members if they knew anything of her wishes, and her aunt (Beryl’s sister) confirmed she had expressed the wish once, before her death in 2022 at the age of 74
Susan, who spent the decade after her father’s death often travelling with her mother, said: “Mum’s wishes were clear – she wanted to be with dad.
“She had unceremoniously delegated the decision to me regarding where to put them.
“Faced with two giant containers filled with ash, I started my research.”
She soon found Aura Flights, a company which sends ashes into space in a ‘unique intelligent scatter vessel’.
The vessel is designed to contain the ashes securely throughout the journey into space and release them in a controlled cascade once the craft reaches a suitably spectacular altitude of 100,000 feet (32,500 metres) above Earth.
The scatter vessel is carried into space by a massive stratospheric balloon filled with hydrogen gas.
The balloon rises at a steady rate of around five metres per second, or 18 miles per hour.
As it rises, the changing pressure causes the balloon to expand, ultimately growing over 20 metres in diameter.
The vessel is also equipped with two camera systems, which film the craft’s ascent into space and the moment that the ashes are released.
Susan said: “It was a relief to have found something that matched my mother’s wishes to be sent off into the sky with Dad.
“I liked the idea that it was a British company backed by scientists, myself being a scientist, and that all the hardware was fully recovered it wouldn’t go to waste or cause intergalactic destruction.
“They were also able to take a whole kilo of ashes.
“For most people, this amount would take the whole of the remains, but obviously Mum and Dad wanted to be together, so I was able to release a large amount into the sky, to fall in rain and snow and float amongst the loud around the world – something I know they would have loved.”
The unique experience wasn’t uncommon of the couple, who Susan described as adventurous, taking helicopter and hot air balloon rides and enjoying scuba diving and travel.
Their ashes were released together in space on 7 December 2023, and Sarah and her husband honoured Beryl’s wish of drinking a glass of fizz to commemorate the night of their release.
Susan said: “The idea that the bits are floating around, some has been rained over various parts of the world, and that they’re kind of all around you – it’s a unique and wonderful service.
“What else are you supposed to do with two kilos of dust? Why not do something really exciting with it?
“I think they would be – my dad in particular, because obviously he didn’t have this idea – but I think they’d both be delighted about where they ended up.
“I have been left with some ashes which still reside in my spare room.
“Dad and I were keen scuba divers [so] maybe the rest will come on a diving trip with me – land and sea, all around us.”
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