# What to do with with dead bodies on Generation Ships **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 14, 2023, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514 "2023-06-14T17:58:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/61 "2023-06-15T19:22:13Z")
Don’t ask about Soylent Brown. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/62 "2023-06-15T19:29:54Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Using animals for food is pretty inefficient, so the whole ship would surely be vegetarian I expect there would be vat grown meat, depending on the energy cost to create it. With sufficient nuclear power, or whatever, energy may not be a limiting factor. We have small quantities of very expensive vat grown meat now, and companies that are working to make it a consumer product, so it is reasonable to assume that by the time we can build a generation ship, it will be cheap and plentiful. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/63 "2023-06-15T19:37:55Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > I expect there would be vat grown meat, depending on the energy cost to create it. With sufficient nuclear power, or whatever, energy may not be a limiting factor. Possible, but if true in this scenario, they’d likely be _more_ horrified by the thought of eating meat from animals/grandma (unless it was socially preserved / added) in that case. After all, given all the ethically ‘clean’ meat (for various values of clean) I suspect the thought of eating meat directly derived from death would be terrifying. For that matter, given hundreds/thousands of years, nothing is free. The effort to gather hydrogen for fusion, via Bussard options or other vaguely probable technologies are going to come at a cost of weight if nothing else. The simplest options are more likely to be the ones that dominate the average generation ship, which would be growing GMO veggies that meet (meat?) human’s nutritional needs. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/64 "2023-06-15T19:52:40Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > I expect there would be vat grown meat… Yuck! I suspect they are working on it now because we have actual meat. Take that off the table and I’d rather have a plant protein substitute. ---
**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:** [June 15, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/65 "2023-06-15T19:56:33Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Were we to ever build a GS for real, it would seem to be a huge stressor for kids learning about where they’re at, how they got here and what their parents chose to leave behind - with no say in it. No matter how well you screened the first generation, there will surely be a lot of suicides in subsequent ones. Personally, I find it to be a stressor to know that I was born on Earth, and was never given any choice in the matter. And on any interstellar ship, the energy needed for life support is not going to be a big deal. It won’t matter if bioengineered algae or vat-grown meat is more energy-efficient than actual dead animals, because if we have a stardrive, then the energy needed for inefficient foods will be a rounding error. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/66 "2023-06-15T20:05:59Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > I doubt there would be any comets to mine along the way (not that you would be able to slow down enough to harvest them anyway), so I would think it crucial to not loose _any_ water - though some loss to leakage (vapor?) might be inevitable. In fact, once you get up to cruising speed, water management might be the biggest priority given that what you start off with will need to last at least several hundred years. You certainly wouldn’t want to lose any water, but there is actually water in interstellar space that might be harvestable. In molecular clouds the water density can be as high as 10,000 water molecules per cubic centimeter, but even in open interstellar space there are water molecules floating around. Whether it’s a significant amount and how to harvest it is still an open question. The most valuable chemical in the human body for space travellers is probably phosphorous. Nitrogen is critical to plant life, and the human body has 3% nitrogen by weight. Potassium is another necessary chemical we wouldn’t want to throw away. My vote would be for the ‘memorial garden’, with the plant mass from that going into standard compost. But if you needed specific chemicals, you’d have to figure out how to process the body to reclaim them. ---
**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:** [June 15, 2023, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/67 "2023-06-15T20:15:29Z")
Life as we know it cannot exist without nitrogen (which is part of every amino acid, the building blocks of protein) or phosphorus (which is part of DNA and RNA, as well as ATP, the chemical that cells directly use for energy). Sulfur is probably also essential, being part of some amino acids, but one could conceivably have life-as-we-know-it that just happens to not use those particular amino acids. Everything beyond CHONPS, you can probably find some living thing that doesn’t need it. Though humans, specifically, need a bunch of others. And we don’t need to figure out how to process bodies to reclaim specific chemicals, because that’s a solved problem. It was solved long before we were even capable of figuring it out. We get the chemicals we need from the plants we eat (or from the animals that also eat those plants), and the plants get them from the soil. In some cases, they need to be in the soil in the right form, but any way they’d be left over from a dead body is a “right form”. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/68 "2023-06-15T20:55:55Z")
Flower gardens seem to be a popular idea in this thread. Would flower plants draw calcium from the corpse fast enough to recycle it? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/69 "2023-06-15T21:11:42Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral): Nope, not a mineral. > > > In [geology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology) and [mineralogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineralogy), a **mineral** or **mineral species** is, broadly speaking, a [solid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid) [substance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_substance) with a fairly well-defined [chemical composition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_composition) and a specific [crystal structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_structure) that occurs naturally in pure form. > > I agree that one would especially want to minimize the loss of water over time. From Wikipedia > [@](#): > > Water and [carbon dioxide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide) are not considered minerals, even though they are often found as [inclusions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusion_(mineral)) in other minerals; but [water ice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice) is considered a mineral.[[12]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral#cite_note-12) So water ice is a mineral. Some designs of generation ship have a layer of ice in the outer shell, or on the front end, to protect against radiation and high-speed dust impacts. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/70 "2023-06-15T21:23:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And on any interstellar ship, the energy needed for life support is not going to be a big deal. It won’t matter if bioengineered algae or vat-grown meat is more energy-efficient than actual dead animals, because if we have a stardrive, then the energy needed for inefficient foods will be a rounding error. The savings in mass, rather than energy, favour vat-grown food. Algae tanks and meat vats both require much less space and infrastructure than farms with enough space to raise cows. Maybe there will be room for farms growing edible insects or fish, which could live on human garbage; but acres and acres of pasture would require much larger ship designs. Even on a generation ship, every gram will need to be accounted for. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/71 "2023-06-15T21:24:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It won’t matter if bioengineered algae or vat-grown meat is more energy-efficient than actual dead animals, because if we have a stardrive, then the energy needed for inefficient foods will be a rounding error. Isn’t the whole point of building a generation ship because we _don’t_ have a stardrive? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/72 "2023-06-15T21:35:38Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > The savings in mass, rather than energy, favour vat-grown food. > > Algae tanks and meat vats both require much less space and infrastructure than farms with enough space to raise cows. Maybe there will be room for farms growing edible insects or fish, which could live on human garbage; but acres and acres of pasture would require much larger ship designs Areas growing plants, however, are growing oxygen as well as food; and may well provide enough net benefit to make it worth allowing the space. There are also psychological benefits for humans from being around growing plants, which I don’t think extend to being around tanks of algae. I agree that raising cows on a generation ship is implausible. Rabbits, maybe; though they might be way too likely to be perceived as pets, which would cause other problems. Having no pets, however, might also cause problems; although there are some humans who actively don’t want to be around anyone other than humans, living with other species in some fashion seems overall to be one of the Things People Do, even people who don’t treat them well. I suppose it might well not be practical to bring obligate-carnivore cats. (Not the only reason I’m not volunteering for a generation ship; but certainly one of the reasons.) ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/73 "2023-06-15T21:36:25Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The most valuable chemical in the human body for space travellers is probably phosphorous. It’s been proposed as an answer to the Fermi Paradox > **[The Fermi Paradox: The Phosphorus Problem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPU9jeQbTOU%2F)** > > The genesis and origin of life may require a very rare and delicate mixture of certain chemicals. One of those is phosphorus, and trying to figure out how we... ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/74 "2023-06-15T21:44:16Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Areas growing plants, however, are growing oxygen as well as food; and may well provide enough net benefit to make it worth allowing the space. Algae vats produce oxygen too, and they can be stacked into much smaller spaces. Humans do have a psychological need for space, but I expect there will be ways to simulate wide open spaces and combat claustrophobia long before we can build generation ships. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/75 "2023-06-15T21:53:41Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Areas growing plants, however, are growing oxygen as well as food; and may well provide enough net benefit to make it worth allowing the space. There is a ways to go on that front (yes, the whole generation ship as well, but), remember [Biosphere 2](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/sunday-review/biosphere-2-climate-change.html#:~:text=Many%20scientists%20looked%20back%20at,Stewart%20and%20her%20colleagues%20declared.)? _“Many scientists looked back at the original Biosphere 2 as a colossal failure. “In short, the Biosphere 2 experiment failed to generate sufficient breathable air, drinkable water and adequate food **for just eight humans** , despite an expenditure of $200 million,” the ecologist Rebecca Stewart and her colleagues declared.”_ All I saying is might be better to use new tech and science than trying to re-create earth in a spaceship. Still it’s an interesting read. . > [@eburacum45](#): > > Humans do have a psychological need for space, but I expect there will be ways to simulate wide open spaces and combat claustrophobia long before we can build generation ships. Holodeck!? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/76 "2023-06-15T22:17:14Z")
The issue of collapsing ecosystems such as what happened with Biosphere is a big deal. Ecologies are complex systems, and we still don’t understand them very well. In Biosphere they kept running into various crashes - suddenly CO2 would spike, or some other thing would happen that they didn’t understand. It may be that artificial ecosystems outside of Earth are extremely hard to keep going over years or decades. Too much diversity required, too many little important interactions that we don’t understand. Or maybe not. We will learn a lot more once we start building permanent stations on the Moon and Mars. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/77 "2023-06-15T22:38:43Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Isn’t the whole point of building a generation ship because we _don’t_ have a stardrive? You still have to accelerate to speeds much greater than humanity has achieved to date, and then decelerate before you arrive. Otherwise, your trip will take millions of years instead of just thousands. Space is big. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/78 "2023-06-15T22:46:06Z")
I think it is a mistake to expect the plants in a generation ship or a habitat to generate enough oxygen to support a biosphere. On Earth the atmosphere contains about two orders of magnitude more oxygen than the total mass of the biosphere; most of this oxygen is ‘fossil’ oxygen, created millions of years ago by plants which are now dead and buried in sediments. If we burned the entire biosphere of Earth to produce carbon dioxide, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere would only decrease by a couple of percent. In a generation ship or space habitat most of the oxygen would need to be supplied by chemical processing. On the other hand plants and/or algae could help maintain a comfortably low level of carbon dioxide, especially if they are well illuminated. Even then we might need artificial CO2 scrubbers to even things out. ---
**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:** [June 16, 2023, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/79 "2023-06-16T02:07:04Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Isn’t the whole point of building a generation ship because we _don’t_ have a stardrive? If you’re getting to other stars, then what you’re using to get there is, by definition, a stardrive. Now, we could in principle do it using low-energy techniques like planetary flybys, but just because you’ve got a generation ship doesn’t mean you want your trip to take longer than all of recorded history. Most likely, you’ll have some sort of fusion-powered drive. > [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > There is a ways to go on that front (yes, the whole generation ship as well, but), remember [Biosphere 2](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/sunday-review/biosphere-2-climate-change.html#:~:text=Many%20scientists%20looked%20back%20at,Stewart%20and%20her%20colleagues%20declared.)? > > _“Many scientists looked back at the original Biosphere 2 as a colossal failure. “In short, the Biosphere 2 experiment failed to generate sufficient breathable air, drinkable water and adequate food **for just eight humans** , despite an expenditure of $200 million,” the ecologist Rebecca Stewart and her colleagues declared.”_ I’m curious if anyone’s ever followed up on that… We know why and how Biosphere 2 failed. It was partly constructed from concrete, and concrete actually continues to cure for decades after it’s hardened enough for use, and the original designers didn’t account for that. Just because the first experiment failed doesn’t mean the project as a whole failed: You take the failures of the first try, fix them, and try again, until you get it to succeed. > [@eburacum45](#): > > I think it is a mistake to expect the plants in a generation ship or a habitat to generate enough oxygen to support a biosphere. The amount of plants necessary to supply sufficient oxygen for a population of heterotrophs (like us) is exactly the same amount of plants as are necessary to supply sufficient food for that same population of heterotrophs. It can’t be otherwise. Of course the plants on board the ship won’t create the ship’s initial atmosphere, but there’s no need for them to do that. All that’s needed is for them to maintain that, a much easier task. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2023, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/80 "2023-06-16T02:27:35Z")
Are you saying yuck because you’ve tasted it and dislike it? Or does the idea of it disgust you? I’m curious as to how it tastes. But I know some people who are squicked out by the thought of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514.md?page=5)