Corpses in Space
NASA’s proposal to freeze-dry human bodies
A total of 18 people have died in space-related incidents, including 14 of NASA’s own astronauts. Despite improved safety measures and increasingly secure technology, the growth of commercial space flight will inevitably lead to an increase in fatalities beyond Earth’s surface.
Unfortunately, dealing with dead bodies in space is a complicated affair.
In popular sci-fi movies, a death aboard a spacecraft has an easy solution: simply breach the airlock and eject the corpse into outer space. However, in real life, this method violates international space law.
UNOOSA, or the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, has strict guidelines to keep Earth’s orbit clean and debris-free. Too much space junk makes space exploration dangerous, with higher probabilities of collision.
Additionally, unlike satellite space junk, human bodies are both collision risks and biohazards. Unless the corpses were attached to a rocket, the bodies would follow the same flight path as the spacecraft it originated from. With more and more corpses floating in space, space travel could be complicated by human health risks. Besides, outer space sight seeing would become rather macabre.
