An American company gives you the opportunity to 'launch' your funeral urn into orbit. In Japan, the option is likely to supplant the Buddhist ritual. The ashes circle the Earth and burn up on contact with the atmosphere. The spokesman of the company: "A fitting recognition for those who have lived with dignity and honor." The country's demographic crisis.

Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - In Japan, alternative funeral rites are likely to supplant the Buddhist ceremony, until now the favorite means of burial. The proposal to disperse the ashes into space, in front of the need to cut costs and the sizes of funerals and cemetery areas, is enjoying growing success among the population.

The American company Elysium Space, whose name refers to the Elysian fields of Greek and Roman mythology, is a real funeral space agency, which positing itself as "a bridge between engineering and anthropology", wants to offer "appropriate recognition to people who have lived their lives with dignity and honor."

In Japan, giving your loved ones a place in the heavenly Elysium is simple and immediate: priced at ,990, you receive an urn (see image) in which to store the ashes of your deceased; a special app for smartphones allows you finally to follow their journey around the Earth in real time. "The Elysium mobile app is your personal gateway to your loved one - one reads on the website of the company- Such a wonderful moment can be shared by all your family and friends. Your love one rests in peace while the milky way rises over the horizon".

Depending on the altitude of the launch, the duration of the trip around the planet can vary from a few months to a few years, at the end of which, "in a poetic moment, the ashes blaze in the atmosphere like a shooting star".

In Japan, the high mortality rate and an average age in constant increase have led in March 2010 to a substantial growth in the market of funeral agencies. According to research conducted by Teikoku Databank Ltd., based in Tokyo, the sector recorded an increase of 0.7%, with a total value of 1.3 billion yen. To this must be added the real lack of space which the country is facing, especially as regards the extension of the cemetery areas; a grave costs today 2.7 million yen (about ,000).

According to an estimate made by the Ministry of Health in 2012, the Japanese population (128 million inhabitants) will decline by one million each year, reaching 87 million in 2050. If the prediction proves correct, in that year, more than a third of the population will be over 65. 

 

• japan
• funeral
• space
• agency