Can you have sex in space?
Zero gravity nookie has always sounded like a lot of fun, but the past couple of years worth of science are concerned that sex in space might not be as awesome as it seems.
From foreplay issues to extreme post-coital problems, humans are going to have to do some serious evolutionary adapting if we're ever going to wander the universe and keep breeding.
Too Many Distractions?
That weightlessness causes quite a few other problems, among them is the extreme distraction of certain female bits wobbling seductively in zero-gravity.
Fears that a woman's breasts would distract flight command into making errors were one of the initial reasons included in the U.S. government's rationale for not having women astronauts up in the air with the guys. On the flip side, it was also included as a major argument for why there should be an all female flight crew.
Issues With Male Anatomy
It might not just be women's anatomy that would be the issue. We've also learned over the years that erections don't happen that often in space.
The zero-gravity weightlessness affects more than just your outer mobility. It also affects all of your inner-workings, including the appropriate blood flow needed for an erection.
Staying Together Is Harder Than It Looks
If sexy time does overcome the odds and gets started, the real fun with weightlessness begins. In an environment where a slight push or passionate thrust, will send a partner reeling to the other side of the ship cabin—sex becomes a delicate balancing act.
Attempting sex in free-fall doesn't just face the problem of holding on to your partner, there's also the rest of the cabin to consider. With the two of you humping about, you'd be sending yourself spiraling all round the cabin, knocking into who knows what kind of important electronics that you need for the return trip home.
Velcro Might Be A Necessity
To counteract the affects of zero gravity and keep you and your partner together and away from all the precious equipment you're trying to do the deed amongst, various harnesses have been proposed.
Recent experiments in zero gravity flight looked at the possibility of a velcro suit that would attach two astronauts together in all the right places.
There's No Privacy
Given the tight quarters of spaceships, and the apparent need for a variety of accoutrements to make sex a possibility, sexy time becomes a hassle.
Not just because you'd have no privacy and your poor other crew mates would have to suffer through your live sex show, but because all of that extra equipment would take up needed space and funding to even have it made, let alone get it on board.
Liquids Don't Behave Themselves
The zero-gravity effects on sperm interaction in the female body remain unstudied in space. Only a few vertebrates have ever managed to make it in microgravity, and their interiors weren't under sufficient observation to chart the progress of sperm attempting to travel their normal route to egg fertilization. The poor little dudes are up against enormous odds without gravity to help them figure out which way they ought to be going. What's more, is that space travel lowers sperm count like crazy as it is.
Radiation Might Produce Some Scary Results
On earth, there's a giant natural magnetic shield that wards off the brunt of radiation the sun is constantly sending our way. But off-world, we're welcoming in doses of DNA ripping sub-atomic particles that our bodies aren't accustomed to handling.
And while that radiation is bad enough for full-grown astronauts, imagine what its doing to any embryonic baby cells in the sperm and eggs that are conjoining into a brand new human. Strange and possibly bad things. That's what.
Mutation Might Be Inevitable
Between the lack of gravity and over-exposure to radiation, cell mutation and DNA adjustments are more than likely. And humans bred in space might be facing a whole new evolutionary frontier that we really can't predict. Though its doubtful we'll get to "Alien"/"Prometheus" stage birth right off the bat.
If, that is, the cells can even get started. Only the embryos of mating mice have really been studied in microgravity thus far, but the results of cell reproduction in mammals were not promising under space conditions.
Sex Lives After Landing
After returning from a jaunt in space, there have been no confirmed issues with astronauts sex lives and mating practices.
In fact, there's a high number of male astronauts getting their wives pregnant as soon as they get back from a mission. But the same error range also produces the more tragic possibility that female astronauts are more likely to miscarry after being in space for awhile. The statistics aren't definite. And there's plausible reasons for each—the men are excited to get back to sex, and the lady astronauts are usually older by the time they get to space which jars the median a bit. But the possibilities confirm a definite need for the space programs to be looking more at the repercussions of space on sex as well as sex in space.
The Bane Of Political Correctness
Unfortunately, in terms of space medicine, the reproductive system has always been low on the list of things that needed studying in space.
And its likely to stay there given the prudish attitude of space agencies and its clique-y astronauts. Most of the time, they don't even want to talk about sex in space. NASA firmly maintains that none of their astronauts have ever engaged in the 64 Mile High Club.
And while its hard to believe that no pairing has happened, given that there's no privacy among the crew and a lot of recording going on by Big Brother down below, it possible they're serious when they say no one has ever gotten it on in space.
Sending A Married Couple
To overcome this rash of morals and get the science of sex in space firmly off the ground and legitimized, its long been proposed that a married team of astronauts be sent up together and keep logs of their encounters.
And while there's talk of a 2018 mission with a married pair, thus far the International Space Station rota has deliberately avoided having its few married sets of space-visitors up in the air at the same time. Their reasoning for this—that the psychological pressures of being in space for a long time might even be scarier for a married couple—is quite sound.
Space Romances Might Be Psychologically Damaging
There's also a lot of speculation that romances on an isolated space station might cause far more psychological turmoil than the average crew can handle.
Humans never really leave a certain high school mentality behind when it comes to romance, and when that teenage angst, yearning, and obsession is applied to a microcosm of people trapped in space, there's nothing to be said except "Danger Will Robinson, Danger."
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Zero gravity nookie has always sounded like a lot of fun, but the past couple of years worth of science are concerned that sex in space might not be as awesome as it seems.
From foreplay issues to extreme post-coital problems, humans are going to have to do some serious evolutionary adapting if we're ever going to wander the universe and keep breeding.
Weightlessness Weighs Too Heavy
The very weightlessness which makes sex in space seem so delightfully acrobatic is actually one of its worse enemies.
Though humans have encountered weightlessness on our occasional missions off-planet, we have absolutely no idea of what its long term affects will actually be. Anyone staying around space long enough to procreate will be facing bone and muscle damage as well as extreme spatial and limb disorientation. And when you're struggling to figure out where you've put your hands yourself, it's not going to be much fun struggling to put your hands all over someone else (who also will be equally confused about what's happening with their own limbs).
That weightlessness causes quite a few other problems, among them is the extreme distraction of certain female bits wobbling seductively in zero-gravity.
Fears that a woman's breasts would distract flight command into making errors were one of the initial reasons included in the U.S. government's rationale for not having women astronauts up in the air with the guys. On the flip side, it was also included as a major argument for why there should be an all female flight crew.
It might not just be women's anatomy that would be the issue. We've also learned over the years that erections don't happen that often in space.
The zero-gravity weightlessness affects more than just your outer mobility. It also affects all of your inner-workings, including the appropriate blood flow needed for an erection.
If sexy time does overcome the odds and gets started, the real fun with weightlessness begins. In an environment where a slight push or passionate thrust, will send a partner reeling to the other side of the ship cabin—sex becomes a delicate balancing act.
Attempting sex in free-fall doesn't just face the problem of holding on to your partner, there's also the rest of the cabin to consider. With the two of you humping about, you'd be sending yourself spiraling all round the cabin, knocking into who knows what kind of important electronics that you need for the return trip home.
To counteract the affects of zero gravity and keep you and your partner together and away from all the precious equipment you're trying to do the deed amongst, various harnesses have been proposed.
Recent experiments in zero gravity flight looked at the possibility of a velcro suit that would attach two astronauts together in all the right places.
Given the tight quarters of spaceships, and the apparent need for a variety of accoutrements to make sex a possibility, sexy time becomes a hassle.
Not just because you'd have no privacy and your poor other crew mates would have to suffer through your live sex show, but because all of that extra equipment would take up needed space and funding to even have it made, let alone get it on board.
The zero-gravity effects on sperm interaction in the female body remain unstudied in space. Only a few vertebrates have ever managed to make it in microgravity, and their interiors weren't under sufficient observation to chart the progress of sperm attempting to travel their normal route to egg fertilization. The poor little dudes are up against enormous odds without gravity to help them figure out which way they ought to be going. What's more, is that space travel lowers sperm count like crazy as it is.
On earth, there's a giant natural magnetic shield that wards off the brunt of radiation the sun is constantly sending our way. But off-world, we're welcoming in doses of DNA ripping sub-atomic particles that our bodies aren't accustomed to handling.
And while that radiation is bad enough for full-grown astronauts, imagine what its doing to any embryonic baby cells in the sperm and eggs that are conjoining into a brand new human. Strange and possibly bad things. That's what.
Between the lack of gravity and over-exposure to radiation, cell mutation and DNA adjustments are more than likely. And humans bred in space might be facing a whole new evolutionary frontier that we really can't predict. Though its doubtful we'll get to "Alien"/"Prometheus" stage birth right off the bat.
If, that is, the cells can even get started. Only the embryos of mating mice have really been studied in microgravity thus far, but the results of cell reproduction in mammals were not promising under space conditions.
After returning from a jaunt in space, there have been no confirmed issues with astronauts sex lives and mating practices.
In fact, there's a high number of male astronauts getting their wives pregnant as soon as they get back from a mission. But the same error range also produces the more tragic possibility that female astronauts are more likely to miscarry after being in space for awhile. The statistics aren't definite. And there's plausible reasons for each—the men are excited to get back to sex, and the lady astronauts are usually older by the time they get to space which jars the median a bit. But the possibilities confirm a definite need for the space programs to be looking more at the repercussions of space on sex as well as sex in space.
Unfortunately, in terms of space medicine, the reproductive system has always been low on the list of things that needed studying in space.
And its likely to stay there given the prudish attitude of space agencies and its clique-y astronauts. Most of the time, they don't even want to talk about sex in space. NASA firmly maintains that none of their astronauts have ever engaged in the 64 Mile High Club.
And while its hard to believe that no pairing has happened, given that there's no privacy among the crew and a lot of recording going on by Big Brother down below, it possible they're serious when they say no one has ever gotten it on in space.
To overcome this rash of morals and get the science of sex in space firmly off the ground and legitimized, its long been proposed that a married team of astronauts be sent up together and keep logs of their encounters.
And while there's talk of a 2018 mission with a married pair, thus far the International Space Station rota has deliberately avoided having its few married sets of space-visitors up in the air at the same time. Their reasoning for this—that the psychological pressures of being in space for a long time might even be scarier for a married couple—is quite sound.
There's also a lot of speculation that romances on an isolated space station might cause far more psychological turmoil than the average crew can handle.
Humans never really leave a certain high school mentality behind when it comes to romance, and when that teenage angst, yearning, and obsession is applied to a microcosm of people trapped in space, there's nothing to be said except "Danger Will Robinson, Danger."
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