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Oct 15, 2021 · This means we need to start thinking about what it will be like to live in space – but also what will happen if someone dies there. After death here on Earth the human body progresses through a...
- Prepare For The Worst
- Freeze-Dried Funerals
- Martian Burial Rituals
- Worst Case Scenario
- A Journey Into The Void
ISS and shuttle astronaut Terry Virts served two expeditions on the space station and one mission on the space shuttle. In total he’s clocked 213 days in space. But the astronaut says he’s never been trained to handle a dead body in space. “I did quite a bit of medical training to save people, but not for this.” NASA’s official statement to Popular...
NASA may not have specific contingency plans for a sudden death, but the agency is working on it; in 2005 they commissioned a study from Swedish eco-burial company Promessa. The study resulted in a yet-to-be-tested design called “The Body Back.” The creepy-sounding system uses a technique called promession, which essentially freeze-dries a body. In...
But the risks of dying along the way are nothing compared to the inevitability of dying once you get there. In promoting his own future space settlement plans, SpaceX’s Elon Musk has openly cautioned that, “If you want to go to Mars, prepare to die.” Which begs the question: if someone dies on the Red Planet, where do you put them? If someone were ...
Space may be the final frontier, but it wasn’t always that way. Humans have spent millennia traversing difficult landscapes and putting themselves in bizarre and dangerous situations in the name of discovery. Thousands of lives have been lost in this pursuit, and on occasion the deceased have actually saved the lives of their comrades. Not through ...
Humans have only been traveling to space for a short time relative to our existence, but we’ve been pushing the boundaries of exploration for thousands of years—and we will no doubt continue to do so despite the risks. Every astronaut or space tourist wishing to embark on a journey to Mars will ultimately be forced to grapple with the reality of de...
Nov 13, 2021 · What would happen to your body if it were exposed to the vacuum of space if you weren't wearing a spacesuit? The first thing to note is that many Hollywood depictions of this scenario are...
- Jacklin Kwan
Aug 6, 2023 · Here is how death in space would be handled today: If someone died on a low-Earth-orbit mission – such as aboard the International Space Station – the crew could return the body to Earth in a capsule within a matter of hours.
Feb 17, 2024 · Space is a harsh place, with freezing temperatures, harmful radiation and a near-vacuum. So, what would happen to the body of an astronaut that was exposed to space's elements?
Feb 20, 2024 · The question of what to do if someone dies in space will become significantly more pertinent — and complex — when humans embark on longer missions deeper into space, and even one day become...
In space we can assume that there would be no external organisms such as insects and fungi to break down the body, but we still carry plenty of bacteria with us. Left unchecked, these would rapidly multiply and cause putrefaction of a corpse on board the shuttle or the ISS.
