The word “life” forms various compounds in Project Hail Mary, often but not always hyphenated.

“life” forms a compound with “support” 33 times. 17 times it is hyphenated as “life-support” and 16 times it is as separate words “life support”.

16 out of the 17 hyphenated cases are in “life-support system“ or “life-support systems”. The one hyphenated case other than this is “life-support air vents” in 06.173. Note, though, that in every case the hyphenated component is further compounded.

The non-hyphenated cases very often refer to a label on a screen or panel although there are also lines like “I have seven hours of life support available” (07.089). But when referring to the screen or panel, a hyphen is not used, even when compounded: “Life Support screen” (08.095), “Life Support panel“ (19.052, 19.064, 27.008).

“life-form” appears 18 times, “life-forms” 8 times, both always hyphenated.

“life-cycle” appears 4 times, always hyphenated. “life-span” appears 2 times, also always hyphenated.

However, “life sentence”, spoken once, by Stratt in 13.040, is not hyphenated.