How to die in space: a half-century guide
NASA’s death preparation isn’t stellar
On Tuesday Elon Musk said the first humans who journey to Mars must be prepared to die.
“The risk of fatality will be high. There’s no way around it,” Musk reminded attendees, as he unveiled his plan to transport colonists to the red planet. “Basically, are you prepared to die? And if that’s OK then you’re a candidate for going.”
Musk is famously blunt, but space is serious business, as any experienced astronaut or space program employee will tell you. While trips to the International Space Station are relatively frequent, attempting new missions or crossing new distances always carries certain risks. When it comes to space, the ethics and practicalities of death must be considered.
In 1969, President Richard Nixon prepared for astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to die during Apollo 11’s mission to the moon. Speechwriter William Safire drafted a memo in case of crew member death, called “In Event of Moon Disaster.” The speech began, “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.” The final line read, “For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.”
Following the speech, a clergy member would perform a remote burial-at-sea ceremony, commanding the astronauts’ souls “to the deepest of the deep” and reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Thankfully, Apollo 11 returned safely after a historic moonwalk.
The psychological preparation for death is crucial for any adventurer, and astronauts face unique challenges. However, NASA doesn’t have a great history of rigorous precautions.
In 1961, Walter F. Grether reassured the American Psychological Association’s Division of Engineering Psychology that America’s new space program would prepare for and assess behavioral challenges in astronauts. In fact, aviation had involved psychologists since the late 1930s — whether working one-on-one with military aviators in World War II or consulting on aircraft design.
However, before Armstrong and Aldrin’s trip to the moon, when the press questioned what would happen if they didn’t return, their emotional preparation was lacking. “Well,” said Armstrong, “that’s an unpleasant thing to think about. We’ve chosen not to think about that up to the present time.”
By 1975, little progress had been made integrating psychology with the space program. That year, Robert L. Helmerich said space psychology was underused in the US, and participants were often “indifferent.” In the early 1990s, flight psychiatrist Patricia Santy said behavior research had effectively disappeared from NASA.
Eventually, NASA recognized that psychological preparation was not only a responsible precaution but in exploration’s best interest, according to The Psychology of Space Exploration. Studies showed in general the better prepared a crew was psychologically, the more successful the mission.
In his book An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield said his crew underwent training exercises known as “death sims.” In a series of roundtable discussions, one astronaut was pronounced dead and the crew acted out its response to the hypothetical scenario. Hadfield writes of his own death sim:
“We’ve just received word from the Station: Chris is dead.” Immediately, people start working the problem. Okay, what are we going to do with his corpse? There are no body bags on Station, so should we shove it in a spacesuit and stick it in a locker? But what about the smell? Should we send it back to Earth on a resupply ship and let it burn up with the rest of the garbage on re-entry? Jettison it during a spacewalk and let it float away into space?”
By exposing crew members to simulations, the hope is that they emotionally adapt to the possibility of death during mission, while also workshopping logistical responses.
Surprisingly, NASA does not have an official protocol for how to deal with a dead body in space. As it turns out, the issue has never come up. Of the more than 500 flights into low Earth orbit or space over the past half-century, only 18 have resulted in deaths—and all were during takeoff or landing.
In a 2014 StarTalk Radio episode, astronaut Mike Massimino said, “It could happen, but you know out of all the training I had, we never went over that one.”
While expelling a dead body from the air-lock, a la Spock in Star Trek, may seem the most reasonable solution, a UN agreement prohibits “space littering.” A dead body could float to a distant planet and disrupt its ecosystem with bacteria.
Since an on-flight mausoleum would be heavy and expensive, green burial company Promessa and NASA developed the “Body Back,” essentially a light sleeping bag. Crew zip the body up, trail it outside the spacecraft for a bit, haul it back in, shake it vigorously, and the frozen body will break up into a fine dust. It’s manual cremation.
As for a Mars burial, it’s risky. If not properly stored, a decomposing body could interfere with the study of Mars’ actual soil composition. The idea to use human remains as fertilizer is currently out of the question, according to Slate.
However, if Elon Musk is to be believed, SpaceX will land humans on Mars by 2025. The journey to Mars itself would take 80 days, and the colonization period would be indefinite. The longest a human has lived in space thus far is 438 days, a record set by Russian Valeri Polyakov. There’s no knowing how the body will respond to longer.
A death on a Mars mission is rather likely, whether in flight or on the distant planet itself. Here’s hoping our astronauts are better prepared.
