Private companies are taking cremated remains and stunt payloads to the moon. Former NASA attorney Steve Mirmina warns that there’s nothing stopping them.

Celestis calls itself “the most compelling pet memorial service on or off the planet,” allowing customers to send a “symbolic portion” of their pet’s ashes to live forever on the lunar surface. (Prices are the same for human remains, Celestis says.) It’s part of a growing wave of companies looking to capitalize on the regulatory gray area that the moon inhabits. 

A Japanese beverage company sent up a payload that looked like one of its Pocari Sweat energy drinks in 2014. Artist Jeff Koons sent up 125 mini-sculptures in 2024; each one corresponded to an NFT that collectors could purchase back on Earth. One man has even raised $227,000 to put a giant cross on the moon. All told, humans have left nearly 500,000 pounds of stuff on the moon’s surface to date, most of which consists of government-sent lunar landers, surveyors and other dead spacecraft.

This explosion of commercial lunar activity is technically legal, says Steve Mirmina, a professor of space law at Georgetown University and former NASA attorney. 

“I searched and searched the law, and unfortunately, there’s no law against launching race cars,” he said, referring to Elon Musk’s launching of a Tesla Roadster in 2018. “We don’t have a government agency with the legal authority to regulate what happens on the moon.”

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