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re: I wonder...
Mary Anne — (archived)

When we put corpses in the ground here, they feed the lawn in the graveyards, eventually. That's fertilizer. We just don't call it by its name. "Dust to dust", and all that.

Anyone who signs up for the space corps surely understands the risks, and is sufficiently educated to understand the value of the human shell vs. the value of the storage space and fuel used to store and transport the shell.

As long as planning takes place up front, rather than forcing people en route to improvise, the families can be prepared for any eventuality. After all, memorial services are not for the dead, but for those still living who love them. Families of sailors buried at sea have no expectation of a fully preserved corpse; this should be no different. Some sort of memorial object might be harvested from the body -- locks of hair spring to mind. They are lightweight and easy to store, have an organic component, and a long history of sentimental attachment in many cultures. As complete an autopsy should also be conducted as possible, with all records transmitted back to Earth, and electronically saved with the artifact. Images should be included, of the corpse at death, the autopsy, and the memorial service.

After death, I can't imagine that anyone would seriously object to the body being used for constructive purposes: fertilizer (as we do now, though not ground up), fuel (as we do now, at cremations, though ceremonially instead of for mechanical purposes), or something else.

I think, but this is just me, that it might be difficult to eat a fellow crew member unless there was literally nothing else to eat. The emotional attachment to people one works with is very strong. Even in the famous incident of the Donner party, the people who were eaten were, by and large, unattached adventurers who traveled with the party rather than members of traveling family groups. Use as fertilizer in case there's a garden or use as fuel more closely resembles our current ways of disposal of human shells, and can be done with a degree of reverence.

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