Seattle Company Seeks To Send Your Stuff Into Space

For those of us who can't afford the $200,000 pricetag for a brief suborbital ride into space aboard a Virgin Galactic ship in 2008 -- or who can't quite stomach the idea of riding in a rocket -- a Seattle company is offering a far safer, much more economical alternative.

For half a C-note ($50) ZG Aerospace will fly your business card into space... and they'll do it a lot sooner than Sir Richard Branson's spaceline will get off the ground, with the maiden flight of ZG's rocket set for a few weeks from now.

ZG Aerospace founder Tom Gonser reports that, frankly, he's surprised by how many people have responded. At least 200 have signed up to send their stuff aboard the maiden flight of his company's 19.5-foot-tall, 775 pound ZGS-1 rocket so far, he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

While the launch has been postponed several times since March, Gonser reports all is go for liftoff from New Mexico's Spaceport sometime in July. Most people are sending their business cards into space, but others have sent ashes... photos... even engraved titanium rings, that the company sells for $250 (including the rocket flight.)

Whatever price you pay, your stuff will be sent into space at an altitude somewhere between 62 and 70 miles up. It will then experience up to four minutes of weightlessness, before returning to earth.

Owners will then be able to retrieve their items... and, we assume, display them with pride. Well, perhaps not the ashes...

FMI: www.zerog-space.com