The Death Star project concept falls in a practical sense at the first hurdle as nobody knows how to build a near light speed propulsion engine for it.

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It struck me that until that night, my mother regarded death as a remote concept that affected other people.

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"There's really a chance here to profoundly reinvent the American concept of death, " says Joe Sehee, international director of the Green Burial Council, a nonprofit that certifies sustainable cemeteries.

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If this is correct, the solution is clear: just as with any other important decision, families should discuss the options in calm conditions, when death is still a distant concept.

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Nursing professor Karen Kehl, in an article called "Moving Toward Peace: An Analysis of the Concept of a Good Death, " ranked the attributes of a graceful death, among them: being comfortable and in control, having a sense of closure, making the most of relationships and having family involved in care.

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In it, her father concluded that the concept of happiness can't apply to God and that, as long as pain and death are in the world, it can't apply to humans either.

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