Astronaut Scott Kelly is one of the One-Year Mission astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Usually, astronauts stay on the space station for six months and they undergo rigorous physical tests and exams before launch. According to a NASA report, it seems the agency is more focused on prevention than the "what if."
NASA astronaut Mike Massimino told StarTalk Radio co-host Chuck Nice about training for space missions. "It could happen, but you know out of all the training I had, we never went over that one," Massimino said.
NASA astronaut Chris Hadfield discusses a "death sim" in his book, "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth." The exercise is sort of a roundtable discussion of a hypothetical scenario. According to Business Insider via Yahoo!, this is how Hadfield explained listening to his own hypothetical space death played out: "'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?"
According to Business Insider, Hadfield wrote: "Who should tell my parents their son is dead? By phone or in person? Where will they even be - at the farm or at the cottage? Do we need two plans, then, depending on where my mom and dad are?"
There has never been a death aboard the International Space Station, but the likelihood of longer missions to deep space and manned missions to Mars, it seems inevitable. Do we let the body float out into the deep vacuum of space, like Mr. Spock's funeral in "Star Trek?"
Turns out, a UN agreement prohibits space litter.
One proposal for dealing with a death in space includes a collaboration between green burial company Promessa and NASA - "Body Back." Body Back is an airtight sleeping bag that a corpse is zipped into before being exposed to the freezing temperatures of outer space, according to Vice. The frozen body would be brought back on board and vibrated until it shattered. The result would be 50 pounds of human body dust that can be hung outside the spacecraft until arrival at your destination.
As NASA advances technology and prepares for the possibility of a manned trip to Mars, perhaps this is one area that needs more research.
