• Sample of the remains of Clyde Tombaugh on the New Horizons spacecraft due to arrive there next year, launched in 2006
• Sample of the remains of Eugene Shoemaker launched to the moon
  
• Sample of remains of Gerard K. O'Neill  amongst quite a few launched to Earth orbit in 1992
  
• Sample of Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek launched into space - eventually de-orbited but plan to send more of his ashes to orbit this year.

Before launching the first man to orbit in 1961, the USSR had sent dummy human figures, wearing tags printed with the name Ivan Ivanovich, to space. The dummies flew in Vostok capsule test flights from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Central Asia.

Georgi Grechko, a veteran of three Soviet space flights, said in 1991 he witnessed the dummy flights and all early manned flights as assistant to the Soviet Union's chief space rocket designer Sergei Korolev.

The dummies were dressed in real space suits and their capsules carried tape-recorded messages to simulate two-way radio. The messages were combinations of letters and numbers. The taped transmissions, overheard around the globe, led to rumors that a cosmonaut had called for help from an out-of-control spacecraft.

Grechko said some rockets blew up before the Gagarin flight. Controllers lost one pre-Vostok test capsule in space, he said. It may still be spinning off somewhere in the cosmos. But most of the dummy test capsules landed as commanded, bouncing down at various sites in Central Asia where they were found by local residents. Seeing lifeless dummies in space suits, those residents spread rumors that cosmonauts had died.
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