Luise Kaish in Deep Space

On Monday, January 8th, at 2:18 a.m., Luise Kaish’s final journey into deep space began. The Vulcan Centur’s rocket engines ignited and lifted off from the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, heading up and east over the Atlantic Ocean. The spaceship took Luise over 185 million miles into deep space, where she will “orbit the sun forever,” fulfilling her “dream of the ultimate voyage.”

As Morton Kaish recalled, “Appropriately, her site of choice remained NASA.gov, forever creative - it was her wish that her ashes travel into space. Not simply into orbit, nor to the moon. But into deep space. The realm of infinity.”

Melissa Kaish watched the launch with her father, Morton — who turned 97 on the same day — via online video streaming. “I’m incredibly overwhelmed at the idea that it’s actually going to happen ... I’m just really thrilled that her dream of the ultimate voyage will be fulfilled,” she said.

Luise Kaish in 1963

As Luise shared during her lifetime: "For me the universe holds an endless fascination. Beautiful as is this earth, I do not wish to be buried in it at death. The thought that my dust, our dust, could be mingled with the matter of star building, released in space to become part of the creative act, perhaps joined with the Almighty... What a fantastic journey that would be, and where I would wish to journey." (Luise Kaish: An American Art Legacy).

For more information, please email susan.fisher@kaishfamilyartproject.com