# Navajo Nation Object to Leaving Human Remains on Moon **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 7, 2024, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727 "2024-01-07T04:33:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/41 "2024-01-08T01:37:26Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Wow, tolerant much? I’m extremely tolerant. I think they should be totally free to believe whatever they want. The vast majority of people of all stripes have beliefs that I consider absurd. The only time those beliefs matter is when they come in conflict with others that don’t share those beliefs. And in that case, it matters very much whether we’re talking fiction vs. reality. Giving in to those that claim emotional harm from things disconnected from reality harms _everyone_. Hence why the Celestis response is on point. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/42 "2024-01-08T01:46:05Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > _Restricting_ someone’s ability to do a thing should only be undertaken when there is a clear, demonstrable harm from that thing. Otherwise, it’s no one’s business but theirs. Since the only claimed harm involves superstitious nonsense, there should be no restriction here. As noted here several times, the Navajo Nation did not voice known objections to the Apollo program, nor to the scientific component of this mission. ISTM that there’s actually a symmetry between what they’re objecting to and what the folks paying to send cremains to the moon are doing. Why are they paying for this? One can speculate on a bunch of possible reasons – maybe so that their loved ones can be accorded a level of reverence unavailable to almost anyone else, or more likely, so that they can gaze up at the moon knowing that some portion of the beloved is somewhere up there. IMHO this places the “lunar memorial” on the same footing as the Navajo objection to it in that **both** are irrational and emotional. This doesn’t give us a slam-dunk answer but it does illustrate that Celestis isn’t clearly in the right. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > > > It should be noted that AFAIK the Navajo haven’t complained about anything up until we started talking about storing human remains > > Not in this particular case, but there are other situations in a similar vein. Some Native Hawaiians are protesting a telescope on Mauna Kea. That it was purely scientific in nature was irrelevant to them, and they considered the whole mountain sacred. In that situation the two interests aren’t equivalent. There are very important scientific benefits to telescopes and other scientific instrumentation on Mauna Kea. That doesn’t justify rampant desecration of religiously important properties, but I don’t believe that’s what was happening here. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/43 "2024-01-08T01:47:44Z")
First, as a Jew I’m upset the Piss Christ, Drawing of Mohammed, Beef Patty rocket has nothing on it to offend me. I feel forgotten and slighted. Second, I feel the proper response to the Navajo is a polite but very firm ‘you do not own the moon’ ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/44 "2024-01-08T01:53:44Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > ISTM that there’s actually a symmetry between what they’re objecting to and what the folks paying to send cremains to the moon are doing. The asymmetry is that one group is saying “you shouldn’t do this”, and the other is saying “we want to do this”. That it relates to human remains is irrelevant, IMO. If one group wanted to leave a steaming wet turd on the moon specifically to offend the Navajo nation, I’d still favor their rights. Because people should not be restricted in their actions unless you can demonstrate an actual harm to others. Just as I support the right to make Piss Christ and all the rest over people’s “right” to not be offended. > [@DocCathode](#): > > I feel forgotten and slighted. How about we put cheese on the beef patty? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/45 "2024-01-08T01:55:32Z")
Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/46 "2024-01-08T02:08:09Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > First, as a Jew I’m upset the Piss Christ, Drawing of Mohammed, Beef Patty rocket has nothing on it to offend me. I feel forgotten and slighted. So I successfully offended the Jewish community by not including anything to offend them. You’re welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/47 "2024-01-08T02:09:54Z")
"If successful, the commercial mission scheduled to launch Monday — dubbed Peregrine Mission One — will be the first time an American-made spacecraft has landed on the lunar surface since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. But Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said that allowing the remains to touch down there would be an affront to many indigenous cultures, which revere the moon. “The moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology,” Nygren said in a Thursday statement. “The suggestion of transforming it into a resting place for human remains is deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations.”" That certainly begs the question: What other objects in space hold a sacred place in Navajo cosmology? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/48 "2024-01-08T02:10:58Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The asymmetry is that one group is saying “you shouldn’t do this”, and the other is saying “we want to do this”. That it relates to human remains is irrelevant, IMO. That’s a very strange way to judge the equivalence of competing objectives. It has absolutely nothing to do with “you shouldn’t do this” versus “we want to do this”. Our entire system of law is based on a vast compendium of “you shouldn’t do this” prohibitions. We have to judge which one is right on reasoned, rational grounds. In this case, the rationale of both sides is irrational emotional bullshit, but at least the Navajo Nation can cite longstanding tradition in support of their case. The argument would be entirely different if they were trying to block science missions. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > If one group wanted to leave a steaming wet turd on the moon specifically to offend the Navajo nation, I’d still favor their rights. Because people should not be restricted in their actions unless you can demonstrate an actual harm to others. You seem to have an unreasonably narrow definition of what constitutes “actual harm”. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/49 "2024-01-08T02:19:49Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Our entire system of law is based on a vast compendium of “you shouldn’t do this” prohibitions. Yes, and (almost) every one of those came about because there was demonstrable harm to someone. Infinitely more things are _possible_ than are restricted, and I should have the right to do any of those things unless they harm someone. I don’t consider this inequivalence strange at all. Consider: - Everything is banned unless proven to be a benefit - Everything is legal unless proven to be harmful The first one describes an authoritarian hellscape. The second, a normal healthy society. Obviously, I favor the second. > [@wolfpup](#): > > You seem to have an unreasonably narrow definition of what constitutes “actual harm”. It’s pretty much the same one that is the law of the land in the US. No quantity of offense exceeds a single person’s right to free expression. And the right to free expression is really just the right to bodily autonomy. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/50 "2024-01-08T03:22:54Z")
I think we need to hear from Hank Hill on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/51 "2024-01-08T11:00:46Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Yes, and (almost) every one of those came about because there was demonstrable harm to someone. Infinitely more things are _possible_ than are restricted, and I should have the right to do any of those things unless they harm someone. That sounds very logical, but in the messy world we humans inhabit it’s rarely that simple. If it were, we wouldn’t be having endless debates – often deeply divisive ones – about what laws we should or shouldn’t have. The problem is that “harm” is often difficult to define, and often encompasses emotional as well as physical harm and considerations of alleged societal harm. Most fundamentally, that laws that we enact to govern us are almost always a balance between competing interests: your desire to do something, versus my desire to be protected from its consequences. Not to get into politics here, but just to give some examples, the balance between your perceived right to own guns and my interest in being protected against gun violence, or a woman’s right to reproductive autonomy versus … well, I’m not sure what, but I guess some people’s moral conviction about protecting a fetus. Those are a few currently contentious examples but they’re not rare; indeed, such a balance of interests really applies to virtually all laws and all juridprudence. The point here being that a maxim like “everything is legal unless proven to be harmful” is so impractically simplistic that it’s applicability to the real world is close to zero. If its converse is an authoritarian hellscape, the maxim as stated is an unworkable libertarian pipe dream. Given that real-world legal judgments almost always represent a considered balance of different interests, the criterion that I raised earlier about which interests are objectively more important can be crucial in making the right judgment. So on the matter of telescopes and important other scientific instrumentation on Mauna Kea, the concerns of native Hawaiians should be considered and the site treated respectfully, but ultimately I can see the wisdon in letting the science go ahead. In the case of the Navajo Nation objection to sending cremains to the moon, there’s no correspondingly objective rationale for overruling them – both sides are valuing nothing more than abstract emotions. But let me ask you this. If it just so happened that the moon had been a revered sacred object throughout 2000 years of Christianity, rather than a belief of the Navajo Nation, do you think we’d be landing and crashing objects into it and leaving astronaut poop on it? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/52 "2024-01-08T11:04:28Z")
FWIW, the launch was a success. [https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/world/ula-vulcan-centaur-rocket-peregrine-launch-scn/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/world/ula-vulcan-centaur-rocket-peregrine-launch-scn/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/53 "2024-01-08T15:30:37Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > One day, far in the future, there will be enough people on the moon that we’ll have to revisit these things, and come up with property rights and other things so that people don’t trash it in a way that has an actual impact on people. But we are very far from that. If you believe someday there will be enough people on the Moon for environmental spoilage to be a problem, doesn’t it make sense to get ahead of the problem before it’s a problem? Or is it that this will be far enough in the future that the problem doesn’t affect anyone we care about? As a concrete exampe, we used to think there was no real harm in detonating atomic bombs in the atmosphere, so it was fine to do that as much as we wanted. Turns out that this rendered it impossible to manufacture steel free of nuclear contamination, so for decades afterward, you could only get low-background steel from salvaging pre-WW2 battleships. This concept applies to many situation where there’s real harm that’s not immediately apparent, so I think we need a better framework than certain people saying “eh, seems fine to me, I should get to do what I want, let the future worry about the future”. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/54 "2024-01-08T15:37:23Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > If it just so happened that the moon had been a revered sacred object throughout 2000 years of Christianity, rather than a belief of the Navajo Nation, do you think we’d be landing and crashing objects into it and leaving astronaut poop on it? One shudders to imagine what that hysteria that might look like, but I supposed the techno-libertarian attitude would be the same. It’s just another opinion to ignore in the name of them doing whatever seems fun or lucrative. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/55 "2024-01-08T20:01:08Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > FWIW, the launch was a success. But trouble in space means the Navajo (well, those of them who care) can breath easy, for now: > **[Peregrine lander suffers anomaly after launch](https://spacenews.com/peregrine-lander-suffers-anomaly-after-launch/)** > > Astrobotic’s Peregrine spacecraft will not be able to attempt a landing on the moon because of a fuel leak shortly after its Jan. 8 launch. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2024, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/56 "2024-01-08T20:05:49Z")
I don’t see any great value to dumping human remains on the Moon. I don’t think it will be prevented if anyone is going to spend the money on such a mission, which might have an otherwise valuable function. At the moment I’m more concerned about the plans to dump human remains on Mars in the near future which is the inevitable result of people reaching the surface of Mars in the near future. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/57 "2024-01-09T01:26:56Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > If it just so happened that the moon had been a revered sacred object throughout 2000 years of Christianity, rather than a belief of the Navajo Nation, do you think No need to ask “if”…Because this actually happened. Ask Galileo. For hundreds of years, the moon was part of the sacred cosmology of the Church. (believing that the,earth was the center of the universe.) Galileo only looked at it, and was jailed. Imagine if, instead of inventing the telescope, Galileo had somehow invented a spaceship. He would not have been allowed to land on the moon. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/58 "2024-01-09T02:12:04Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Imagine if, instead of inventing the telescope, Galileo had somehow invented a spaceship. He would not have been allowed to land on the moon. Even if he named the spaceship after a _Greek_ god? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/59 "2024-01-09T02:18:30Z")
Galileo didn’t get jailed for looking at the Moon through a telescope. He got jailed for being a giant grade A dick. He asked the Pope for permission to write a book about heliocentrism, and the Pope gave him permission. But instead, he then went and wrote a book about the Pope being an idiot. Did the Pope overreact? Yeah, probably. But it wasn’t the heliocentrism that he was overreacting to. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2024, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727/60 "2024-01-09T10:18:43Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Most fundamentally, that laws that we enact to govern us are almost always a balance between competing interests: your desire to do something, versus my desire to be protected from its consequences. Yes, _consequences_. Which in almost all cases is some kind of harm. Physical harm, economic harm, reputational harm, etc. But there has to be some actual thing that happened to a person. > [@wolfpup](#): > > The point here being that a maxim like “everything is legal unless proven to be harmful” is so impractically simplistic that it’s applicability to the real world is close to zero. That’s not remotely true. The western legal tradition is _massively_ biased in that direction, in virtually every respect. You said it yourself: laws are _prohibitions_ on things, not allowances. If there is no law, then the thing is legal. And laws aren’t made unless some kind of harm is identified. Yes, there is some fuzziness on exactly what constitutes a harm, and so we have some laws about harm-adjacent things like drug use. But that does not mean we are in some broad middle ground between the two extremes I laid out. It’s arguing about millimeters on one end of a football field. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Given that real-world legal judgments almost always represent a considered balance of different interests You’re engaging in a selection bias here: the only time cases even _make_ it to the legal system is if someone can show they’ve been harmed. That’s just the basic principle of legal standing. So yes, there’s a balance of interests _among the cases where a party has standing_. That is a tiny, infinitesimal subset of all possible cases. Just try to imagine a world where standing wasn’t a thing! Where anyone, anywhere, could argue that you shouldn’t do something, and that each time the court would have to consider the balance of interests. It wouldn’t even be a dystopia; it’s just a nonsense, impossible, Kafkaesque situation. What’s extra funny in this particular case is that it’s not just that the Navajo can’t show that they’ve been harmed in a meaningful way. They can’t even show that the event even happened (I mean, assuming the landed succeeded, which it isn’t going to). If it was physical harm, that would be easy to show, or pollution can be measured, and so on. Even direct emotional abuse can at least be shown to have taken place. But here, it isn’t like the company carved a giant Pepsi logo into the moon. The remains are completely undetectable from Earth. The Navajo do not “feel a disturbance in the Force” as soon as the remains touch the surface. > [@wolfpup](#): > > If it just so happened that the moon had been a revered sacred object throughout 2000 years of Christianity, rather than a belief of the Navajo Nation, do you think we’d be landing and crashing objects into it and leaving astronaut poop on it? What, you mean like immersing a figurine of Jesus Christ in a vat of urine, offending billions of Christians in the process? Of course that’s allowed. Did we consider the balance of interests in allowing it? No; it’s obvious freedom of expression, and the only legitimate controversy is whether it should have been funded with tax dollars. Absolutely zero consideration was given to the amount of offense taken. Again, imagine what a hellscape we’d live in if that weren’t the case. If any artwork could only be produced if, weighed against the potential objections of _the entire rest of humanity_, it came out as a net positive. Absurd. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/navajo-nation-object-to-leaving-human-remains-on-moon/995727.md?page=4)