
Death in space: The ethics of dealing with astronauts’ bodies - sergeant3
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/04/death_in_space_the_ethics_of_dealing_with_astronauts_bodies.single.html
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swamp40
If I have gone to all the trouble of getting to Mars, don't you _dare_ send my
body back to Earth.

And with a whole planet filled with nothing, I think you can find room for a
decent cemetery - so that in a thousand years someone can look down on my
headstone and say _" Here lies one of the first humans ever to set foot on
Mars."_

And if I _don 't_ quite make it there, just launch my body out towards
somewhere like Kepler-186f, where in a million years some alien species might
discover it and have proof that life _does_ exist somewhere out there.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _If I have gone to all the trouble of getting to Mars, don 't you dare send
> my body back to Earth._

Completely agreed.

> _And if I don 't quite make it there, just launch my body out towards
> somewhere like Kepler-186f (...)_

So now instead of a bigger grave or tombstone, your family will have to pay
for a bigger delta-v budget ;).

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Crito
It is interesting that in western society (and perhaps society in general, I
don't claim to know) cannibalism is considered one of the most horrifying
things you can do... _except_ in cases where it is necessary to stay alive.
Pretty much nobody faults people for resorting to cannibalism when the choice
is cannibalism or death. We might dance around it and avoid talking about it,
but we are pretty understanding when it comes to a life and death situation.

We see examples of this when people are stuck in the Andes or on a life raft
in the middle of the ocean.

In situations where negligence of the cannibals is seen to have contributed to
the circumstances that lead to the necessity of cannibalism, we are a bit less
forgiving. For example the Donner Party.

~~~
Implicated
I'm forgiving of anyone who eats human flesh out of necessity, regardless of
the circumstances that got them there.

Donner party included.

~~~
thesteamboat
It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all
the people.

\-- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Ethics for Tomorrow"

~~~
waterlesscloud
Those quotes were miles beyond any other game. Someone deserves kudos for all
the work they put into those.

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AnimalMuppet
I go two ways on this. If I'm dead, whatever I am, I'm gone. My body isn't me.
Do whatever you want with it. (For example, I carry a donor card.) Stuff it
out the airlock. Leave it behind on another planet. Whatever. I won't care one
way or the other.

On the other hand, as Frank Herbert said in Dune, the line between humans and
animals (or maybe something more like civilization and savagery?) begins with
how we treat the dead. It matters, not so much for the dead person, but for
society as a whole.

So maybe the answer is something like this: Treat the dead bodies with as much
dignity as circumstances permit. If circumstances don't permit any particular
thing, don't worry about it.

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strictnein
> "in the highly probable event that the brave souls aboard Apollo 11 became
> stranded on the moon"

Highly probable? Is this backed up by something? I've read some on Apollo 11,
but never came across the idea that the astronauts being stranded was
considered a likely event.

~~~
ChuckMcM
There were a number of scenarios where the mission might have failed. This was
partly due to lack of information (can the lander actually remain vertical on
lunar regolith where it is landing?) and partly due to weight contraints on
the number of redundant systems.

For example the same cryopump that exploded on Apollo 13 could have had the
same failure on the command module of Apollo 11 while the Armstrong and Aldrin
were on the Moon.

Armstrong manually piloted the LEM due to a bug in the computer programming
for the landing, and had to move laterally as the original landing site had
too many boulders. He landed with less than 30 seconds of reserve propellent.

Errors in re-entry burns can lead to entering the atmosphere too quickly or
too shallowly. Either are fatal.

There were many, many things that could have doomed the mission which supports
the notion of 'highly probable'.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
"Many things can go wrong" != "failure is highly probable". You also have to
think about the probability of each one of those things going wrong.

~~~
ChuckMcM
In general I agree with that, however there were many single points of failure
in the Apollo program that resulted loss of crew and vehicle. In a
conversational article such as this one I did not feel that the
characterization was unwarranted. as I recall Michael Collins said as much in
his book on the mission.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Carrying-Fire-An-Astronauts-
Journeys/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Carrying-Fire-An-Astronauts-
Journeys/dp/0374531943/)

