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Comment by jawns | Hacker News Reader

Even though no religion owns the moon, there are laws in many places about the disposal of human remains, even on public lands, so I don't see why there couldn't be similar international regulations about the disposal of human remains on the moon.

Indeed, I should think that apart from any religious objections, there should be deep concern from a purely scientific standpoint. This is, right now, a pristine space. We should not be leaving a bunch of organic material there for purely commercial reasons.

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And there are also public lands where human remains may be disposed. I think the premise that some find controversial is that the Navajo Nation expects unilateral veto power over the entire moon, on grounds of personal belief.

Regarding the scientific concern, NASA and space agencies DO have controls in place to limit potential biocontamination.

There is essentially no carbon on the moon right now, which will be required for eventual greenhouses. Any organic material deposited on the moon may be, pragmaticaly speaking, too valuable to not break down and add to the carbon cycle. I suspect many social norms taken for granted on earth will be forced to adapt by the environment in space.

What greenhouses do you mean?

I have bad news for you about what the Apollo missions did with their bags of poop...

Were they launched tangentially to the surface at a speed much lower than orbital speed?

Hopefully not at 1 km/s (approximately the orbital velocity).

I don't think it's nearly that high for the moon

> so I don't see why there couldn't be similar international regulations about the disposal of human remains on the moon.

Because there's not really a central enforcement mechanism like there is for regular laws?

I mean, that's a problem for all international agreements, but it seems like it would be relevant here as well. It would require a tremendous amount of political capital and buy-in from every country capable of making a vehicle that can travel to the moon. And spending that political capital for something like this seems like pretty low ROI

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