Man's desire to go to the Moon and Mars is becoming more formidable. Whether it is India's Chandrayaan mission or NASA's mission to send humans to the moon again, everything is very ambitious, but along with these missions, it is also very important to take care of the safety of the people. Going and working in space is not only dangerous, but for this astronauts have to undergo months and sometimes years of training.
But have you ever wondered what happens to an astronaut's body if he dies in space? Spacecraft is present to take them to space and it takes many months of planning to bring them back, but if a person dies in the meantime, then his body will be brought back or left there when till no other spacecraft reach there.
According to NASA's information, so far 18 people have died in space, out of which 14 were members of NASA. Now the thing to note is that if something like this happens, what is the first protocol of NASA?
The world is planning to set up a colony on Mars, and in such a situation, what will happen if people expire while going there or die while living there?
What is NASA's plan to handle dead bodies?
Nothing, yes... You will find it a bit strange to know, but NASA does not have any special plan to preserve or bring back the dead body of the astronaut present in space. We know that astronauts cannot be left in space in the same way, but how many options are there to bring them back?
So far there have been cases where all the people of the crew have died while going to space or at the time of return. At such a time, there is no option to preserve his body, but what to do if someone dies during a space mission?
There are some theories about space funeral
American website Popular Science has mentioned this in a report. He has tried to know about this by talking to former Astronaut Commander Hadfield. Apart from this, he has also mentioned Hadfield's book 'An Astronaut's Guide to Life'.
He also mentioned a hypothetical incident that if someone dies there, all the survivors will start solving the problem. There is no body bag in the space station, so it will be stored in the spacesuit first, but the body will decompose very quickly in the spacesuit, so there is no specific guideline about what to do with the smell.
In such a situation, the body will have to be air locked and it will have to be stored at a place in the space station where the body remains cool. It is just like if a crew member dies in a submarine, then the body is stored at a place where it can get the maximum coolness. However, bringing back that body will have to give the astronaut's seat which will increase the problem.
NASA does not have any plan yet, but work on it has been going on for a long time. A 2005 study has also been mentioned in which a company Promisa had made a plan to freeze the astronaut's body by leaving it open for a while in space and then with the help of vibration, thousands of pieces of that body would be cut so that It should be easy to bring the body back. It is just like the body turns to ashes, but here it will turn into thousands of small pieces of ice. However, there is no information about how this will be done after that what will be the process of bringing back the body and whether the family members will be ready for this.
If a body is left alone in space, not only will it become a biohazard, but such bodies may follow the spacecraft into the Earth's atmosphere or may wander in space forever.
Image credit: NASA / Wikipedia
