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Posted on 05/02/2007 9:20:58 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
Never mind sex in space; what about death up there?
ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 2, 2007
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back?
When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew? Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight?
With NASA planning to land on Mars 30 years from now, and with the recent discovery of the most “Earth-like” planet ever seen outside the solar system, the space agency has begun to ponder some of the thorny practical and ethical questions posed by deep space exploration. Some of these who-gets-thrown-from-the-lifeboat questions are outlined in a NASA document on crew health obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request.
NASA doctors and scientists, with help from outside bioethicists and medical experts, hope to answer many of these questions over the next several years.
“As you can imagine, it's a thing that people aren't really comfortable talking about,” said Dr. Richard Williams, NASA's chief health and medical officer. “We're trying to develop the ethical framework to equip commanders and mission managers to make some of those difficult decisions should they arrive in the future.”
One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?
Sex is not mentioned in the document and has long been almost a taboo topic at NASA. Williams said the question of sex in space is not a matter of crew health but a behavioral issue that will have to be taken up by others at NASA.
The document does spell out some health policies in detail, such as how much radiation astronauts can be exposed to from space travel (no more radiation than the amount that would increase the risk of cancer by 3 percent over the astronaut's career) and the number of hours crew members should work each week (no more than 48 hours).
But on other topics – such as steps for disposing of the dead and cutting off an astronaut's medical care if he or she cannot survive – the document merely says these are issues for which NASA needs a policy.
“There may come a time in which a significant risk of death has to be weighed against mission success,” Wolpe said. “The idea that we will always choose a person's well-being over mission success, it sounds good, but it doesn't really turn out to be necessarily the way decisions always will be made.”
For now, astronauts and cosmonauts who become critically sick or injured at the International Space Station – something that has never happened – can leave the orbiting outpost 220 miles above Earth and return home within hours aboard a Russian Soyuz space vehicle.
That wouldn't be possible if a life-and-death situation were to arise on a voyage to Mars, where the nearest hospital is millions of miles away.
Moreover, Mars-bound astronauts will not always be able to rely on instructions from Mission Control, since it would take nearly a half-hour for a question to be asked and an answer to come back via radio.
NASA will consider whether astronauts must undergo preventive surgery, such as an appendectomy, to head off medical emergencies during a mission, and whether astronauts should be required to sign living wills with end-of-life instructions.
The space agency also must decide whether to set age restrictions on the crew, and whether astronauts of reproductive age should be required to bank sperm or eggs because of the risk of genetic mutations from radiation exposure during long trips.
Already, NASA is considering genetic screening in choosing crews on the long-duration missions. That is now prohibited.
would it be discriminatory to not have fertile females on the ship? Perhaps have only older women among the women astronauts on a long trip?
You missed the “Spider Bite Boner” thread yesterday.
Actually, even flaccid Mr.Goofy would be at attention in zero-G.
Ron Popiel's Soylent-O-Matic!
One word:
ZipLok
Hey, it worked for Chevy Chase, right?
No worries...they never make it past the first act anyway.
Amundson and his sled dogs beat Scott and his tractors to the South Pole, because you can’t eat tractors.
NL Vacation references aside, that’s actually been used in SF for about 60 years, for when burial in space isn’t an option for various reasons and the vessel is too small to store the corpse in an out-of-the-way location.
I always wanted to know what a fart would do in zero gravity. That could be a rush.
GOOD ONE!!
Space exploration will always be at its heart a military endeavor. There is all sorts of “moral relativism” that goes on in dangerous military exercise.
If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail.
I dunno... A cloud of freeze-dried cadavers orbiting our system might discourage hostile aliens from messing with us.
There was a married couple that went up in the late 90’s, and there are rumors that, since they had children, the only reason both would go on the same mission would be for studies on sex in space. One of the more verbose conjectures I read were that they used a contraption with a few velcro restraints to try and counteract the inertia, and that it focused on “other” sex acts that don’t involve as much recoil.
My ex-wife’s grand father was a gold prospector in Alaska about 1901 or so. He wrote a book about his experiences. One interesting comment in his book was you could always tell when there had been a rough winter when you saw a lot of sled dogs with no tails. Apparently it was a common practice when food got short, to have dog tail soup. If you killed your dogs, you would not get out.
Zactly, troll it behind the spacecraft for a few days, place the remains in a shoebox and bring it back.
Why do you think Lewis and Clark switched from boats to horses and dogs?
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