Astronaut Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr., one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts and the only man to fly on all three of NASA’s early space missions, has died at the age of 84, NASA officials confirmed Thursday.

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Now that NASA is seriously thinking about a Mars mission, not to mention perhaps someday exploring extrasolar Earthlike planets, they’re beginning to consider who-gets-thrown-from-the-lifeboat questions such as how long to keep a critically ill astronaut alive before pulling the plug and conserving the air and energy he’s wasting. In a masterstroke of understatement, they’ve also identified the need for a policy on handling sexual desire amongst a mixed-sex crew on long missions. Um, duh.

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