Goodbye Pikachu: Owner Plans To Scatter His Cat's Ashes To Space

In honor of his cat Pikachu, Steve Munt is raising funds to send Pikachu's remains into space through a space memorial company's service. 

To execute the mission, Munt has agreed to pay $5,000 for a company called Celestis to load a few grams of his cat's remains onto a rocket (whose primary mission is to launch a satellite into orbit) and release them once in space. 

Pikachu won't be the first cat to go into space, if this were to happen. That title belongs to Felicette, a French cat who flew into space and parachuted back to Earth.

If all goes according to plan, Pikachu will become the second cat to enter space. The first, a French stray named Félicette, launched in 1963 aboard the Véronique AG1 rocket, and later safely parachuted back to Earth. The space cat received international media attention, and was even featured on stamp collections.

(Image credit: NASA/Wikimedia Commons)