The Reality of Life on a Spaceship

Consider a spaceship traveling through space whose mission is to explore the universe. Because of the vastness of space, the ship will never to return to the mother planet – it must sustain itself, perform scientific observations, and send the information back to earth.

The ship was designed and equipped to produce, recycle, or convert all of the waste materials generated by ship into usable items needed to support life. In addition, a system has been installed to collect any stray elements scattered throughout space and convert them into materials that the ship will need to stay in good repair. Any passing asteroids will also be captured and mined for usable metal, etc. Hydrogen molecules, the most common element found in the universe, will power the atomic fission engine. In short, the entire spaceship will be completely self-contained.

A delicate number of crew members must be maintained to operate the ship – never too many people nor too few. The initial crew was selected of all age groups and both sexes. To maintain the proper number of crew members, a computer program will constantly analyze the current population and list actions necessary to maintain that “ideal” population in the future.

It is necessary that the number of babies born each month or year remain relatively constant; relative to the number of deaths. If either a spurt of longevity or a serious disease alters the “ideal” population demographics, then alterations must be made, such as keeping old people on the job longer and/or increasing the birth rate slightly. More dramatically, if the senior members of the spaceship live longer than expected, then the on board hospital would simply not treat complex diseases, such as cancer, brain aneurysms, or other diseases associated with old age. The old people would simply be allowed to die slightly earlier than otherwise might be expected.

One complexity considered before the spaceship was launched was the issue of “imperfect, deformed or mutated” humans. Somehow, if an aberrant gene or abnormal behavior appears in one of the babies or other members of the crew that person must immediately be sterilized. The extreme danger, of course, is that this crew member could reproduce other children with the same defect.

The rule would be administered as humanely as possible. If a person is harmlessly abnormal, such as a deformed hand, that person would be sterilized at birth and allowed to live a normal, productive life. However, if the abnormality would endanger or a burden the well being of the ship, then that person would have to be terminated. Obviously the ship cannot carry the extra burden of a baby born with some disease or malformation that makes him/her less than a useful member of the crew. That same rule would also apply to any other crew member that becomes blind or is a social misfit, such as propensity to rob, cheat, or in some way harm the crew or ship. That person would similarly be terminated and the birth/death rate would have to be adjusted slightly to account for the loss.

I start this series of essays with this hypothetical situation, because what I have to say will constantly call into question: Isn’t our hypothetical spaceship exactly like the planet earth? Does our planet have a maximum population carrying capacity? Isn’t it wise to terminate the life of individuals that pose a real threat to the rest of the earth? Why should the rest of the people on earth suffer a lower standard of living to pay for abnormal, dysfunctional people that cannot perform the duties expected of them?

The question is not, “how do you know this person is dysfunctional” – skip that issue for now. The question is “isn’t the highest moral principle to eliminate defective humans from the population?” Personally, I think it is.