Space Wedding
The first space wedding took place in May 2009 when cosmonaut Sergei Malenchenko married Ekaterina Dmitriev. The ceremony was held at NASA headquarters in Houston, Texas, and the two dialed into a video link to celebrate the special day. The ceremony took place in a spacecraft that reached an altitude of 62.1 miles (100 kilometers) and cost 240 million yen ($2.2 million). Both the couple and their guests were given an album and printed out photo albums to commemorate the occasion.
The wedding itself was conducted in zero gravity, and the bride and groom exchanged vows in front of their guests. The couple will most likely be able to see the Earth’s outline, but not far enough to be floating. A friend of the astronaut will perform the ceremony in Houston. The couple will then float around in space with their guests for as long as they want. The ceremony will take place in a private jet, and will cost about a hundred thousand dollars.
The ceremony will take about a minute and a half, and the couple will likely have two or three guests in attendance. The flight is scheduled to begin in 2011 and Yuri Malenchenko’s first space wedding is reportedly expected to start in 2011. After this first mission, the Russian cosmonaut will have had the opportunity to marry his American girlfriend. The couple’s first daughter, Camilla, is a result of the marriage. Despite the controversies over the space wedding, it is still a great moment for the astronaut community.
The space wedding has not yet been performed in the United States, but plans are underway to begin. While the actual ceremony isn’t available in the U.S., space tourism is booming around the world. A 20 million dollar payment from an American billionaire to the Russian space agency is enough to start a space wedding. And there’s no doubt that it will be a memorable event for the two of them. However, a space wedding will only happen if there’s a way to make it in the real world.
There is no legal requirement for a space wedding in the United States. The first space marriage took place in 2001, and it was a legal ceremony. It lasted for about five minutes and was broadcast from a private airport in Houston, Texas. During the ceremony, the couple and guests exchanged vows in zero-gravity. The ceremony would probably last about 60 minutes and was classified as a “private family conference,” although it would be possible for them to fully float in space.
The space wedding is not available in the United States, but it is being done all over the world. The Japanese company First Advantage has partnered with Rocket Plane, a company based in Oklahoma City, to conduct the flights. The marriage will take place 100 kilometers above Earth’s surface. The couple will also spend several minutes in zero-gravity during the ceremony. Neither will have the luxury of floating completely in space. As of January 2011, the first weddings took place in space.