Did they ever consider having children in Passengers?

Question

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

In the film Passengers,

Jim and Aurora make a life for themselves together aboard the starship, which presumably lasts for decades.

When the crew wake up during the final approach to Homestead II, it looks like they discover

a greatly changed ship, and Aurora's memoirs, but no sign of any living people.

Did Jim and Aurora ever consider having children together? If not, why not?

As well as continuing not only their genetic line but also their way of living aboard the starship, this would have enabled them to still have loving company in the event that one of them died before the other. Multiple children could have kept each other company after both their parents were gone; nobody would ever have had to live entirely alone as Jim did at the start. Some of them might even have lived long enough to see Homestead II. The advantages seem to be many and the disadvantages none - and yet we see no sign that this ever happened, not even decades later.

Answer 1

The ending of the film was left intentionally vague by the film's director, Morten Tyldum. In short, he's happy for you to imagine that they went on to have kids, but only if you want to.

We had a longer ending with Andy Garcia walking out of the elevator. 'Why is he in one shot?' Because it was two scenes that we shot with him, but we find out that by doing the ending a little shorter, it made people talk more about it. I want to like, 'Did they have children? What happened?' It's good. Somebody will go like, 'Oh, I think I saw some children inside the house.' Somebody goes like, 'Wait, if you saw that, then there probably is!' 'How was their life?'

But they both get to do what they set off to do. She set off to write a story. She thought it was different story. She had to, instead of looking outward, she had to look inward... Which I think is amazing, and he build his house, and was able to live in it... So, in many ways, they completed what they needed, and the rest I want people to imagine and talk about and it should be up to them.

_{^{'Passengers' director defends the movie's controversial ending}}

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You may wish to note that in the film's original script, the ending was far less ambiguous. They had kids and even made use of artificially inseminated sperm along the way.

The ship’s hull is scorched and abraded from its cosmic crossing. But the lights shine, the engines throb, the landing gear receive the weight of the ship.

The starship’s gangway lowers. The doors open. CHILDREN run down the gangway. Children of all ages, of all races. Twenty of them, thirty. They point at the sun, at the clouds, laughing, wide-eyed in wonder.

We move up the gangway, through the disembarking passengers. Behind the children: Teenagers. Adults in smaller numbers as they grow older. Finally a handful of gray-haired elders.

...

At the aft end of the Concourse, a high wall. Here a long list of dates is inscribed. The last date is the ship’s landfall on Homestead II; the first, Jim’s awakening. In between: an accelerating tally of births, deaths, marriages, catastrophes and achievements...a century of shipboard life.

Which was a necessity because they'd

accidentally vented all 5000 of the other passengers into space.

and no, I'm not joking. That's what actually happened. Seriously.

Answer 2

Perhaps another thing should be considered.

The protagonist was exposed to the reactor plasma or whatever was vented from the reactor. While we cannot be sure what was the principle of the reactor function we can suppose that he had received an (un)healthly dose of radiation. True, the autodoc revived him and put him back to health, but we cannot be sure about long term effects of his exposure. He could have been sterilized or his genetic material could have been damaged to the extent that procreation would be unadvisable.