Peter Beck and Mark Rocket aim to make history by launching the first privately constructed rocket from the southern hemisphere. Photo / Doug Sherring

Peter Beck and Mark Rocket aim to make history by launching the first privately constructed rocket from the southern hemisphere. Photo / Doug Sherring

If Wellingtonian Clare Keenan has her way, her grandmother's ashes will shoot into space later this month, enclosed in New Zealand's first sub-orbital rocket.

Her dream, to honour her gran's memory with a rocket launch, will be made possible by a couple of Kiwi rocket geeks who, against all odds, are ready to blast off.

The pair, Christchurch space lover and aptly named Mark Rocket, and self-professed Auckland science geek Peter Beck, dreamed up the space-race venture when they met three years ago.

They formed Kiwi-based aerospace company Rocket Lab, aiming to make history on November 30 by launching the first privately constructed rocket from the southern hemisphere. And they're selling space through Trade Me and eBay - space on board, that is.

Keenan wasted no time in putting an opening bid on Trade Me for $3000 and can think of no better way to celebrate the life of her grandmother Susanna Lizamore, 84, who died earlier this year, than sending some of her ashes along for the ride.

"She was such an adventurous lady," says Keenan, "I know she'd like to have given this a go."

If successful, Lizamore's ashes will blast off with more than 22,700 messages to deceased family members from people around the world, collected by Houston aerospace company Spaces Services and forwarded to New Zealand.

Beck and Rocket set up Rocket Lab after discovering their individual interests were a marriage made in space.

Rocket, 39, is fascinated by space technology and travel and was the first New Zealander to confirm and book on the Virgin Galactic flight bound for space in 2010/11.

A child of the Star Wars generation, Rocket - the primary funder of Rocket Lab - changed his surname by deed poll. You'll have a tough time getting him to confess his original name.

"It's been Rocket for as long as I remember."

Beck, 32, has always been a man with rockets on his mind. "I'm proud to be called a geek. Geeks make the best contributions to our planet."

The award-winning scientist and engineer, who was last year presented with the Royal Society of New Zealand's Cooper Medal, began his career in Fisher and Paykel's design office in Dunedin before moving to developing smart materials and structures for Industrial Research Limited.