>>95814813
>>95809167
You're both thinking about this wrong, first in terms of lacking creativity and second in terms of being too gimmicky. The lich is a supremely efficient astronaut in basic material terms. Yes they are rare, but people with the intelligence and fitness to be man a spacecraft are also rare, liches would be smart enough and magically empowered enough to fit the bill perfectly. Full lich crews might be impractical due to their rarity, but a lich, as an inherently skilled necromancer and caster, is uniquely suited to run a spacecraft independently, animating skeleton support crew and monitoring/interfacing with the machinery via simple spells.
Most importantly, you must think about space missions in terms of delta v, the thrust you can get from a spaceship limited by the weight of fuel you're lifting. The phylactery of the lich is a huge benefit of this in simple terms of allowing you to cross off any need for the ship to return on a mission that isn't predicated on bringing back samples.
A lich could be launched on a mission to Mars, run the craft using skeletons (not even needing oxygen on board), set up a base after landing and potentially leave behind skeletons to run it, and then return to earth by detonating himself and reviving at a phylactery in mission control, ready to hop into the next rocket.