Pondering what to do with the dead in space

This is certainly something they should be thinking about now before the situation arises out there.

But on other topics — such as steps for disposing of the dead and cutting off an astronaut's medical care if he or she cannot survive — the document merely says these are issues for which NASA needs a policy.

"There may come a time in which a significant risk of death has to be weighed against mission success," [bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania Paul Root] Wolpe said. "The idea that we will always choose a person's well-being over mission success, it sounds good, but it doesn't really turn out to be necessarily the way decisions always will be made."

Especially when there's no ambulance for millions of miles. Just remember, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.