NASA Keeps Mum on Celestial Hanky Panky As Experts Ponder ‘Push & Thrust’ Challenges of Space Sex
13:33 GMT 25.09.2022 (Updated: 10:42 GMT 21.04.2023)
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) does not explicitly ban sex in space. However, its astronaut code of conduct calls for "relationships of trust" and "professional standards" to be maintained at all times.
Sex in space will doubtless become a natural part of life at a lunar or Mars base some day, but for the time being, NASA opts to steer clear of any official comments on intimate relations among the stars. Its code of conduct calls for "relationships of trust" and "professional standards" to be maintained at all times by space crews.
“Officially, no sex has occurred in space. That said, this is likely to change - and for many reasons, must change - as we expand into the cosmos for ever longer periods of time,” Simon Dubé, a sex researcher at the Kinsey Institute told The Daily Beast.
There is a good reason NASA would want to prevent astronauts from engaging in some celestial hanky panky, Dr Haig Aintablian, a space medicine physician at the University of California at Los Angeles, added.
NASA would surely want to rule out any possibility of a pregnancy in space, as it is not yet known how safe it might be for a pregnant woman to live and work in those conditions, Dr Jennifer Fogarty, assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Space Medicine, says.
To date, there has been “limited success” in space experiments where invertebrates and insects have conceived offspring in conditions of microgravity.
“Anatomically and biologically, there are no known impediments to human conception in space. However, there are serious concerns that radiation and microgravity could cause negative effects for a fetus, birth defects, or loss of life,” Fogarty said.
One thing the experts agree upon is that sexual activity, whether for procreation or gratifying the libido in the “hostile and volatile environment that is space” needs to be studied if humanity is seriously pondering life beyond Earth.
For example, billionaire SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk's exit plan envisages a million people on Mars (via SpaceX rockets) by 2050.
29 August 2022, 03:31 GMT
"We need to know more about sexuality in space if we are serious about long-duration space flights. Sexuality is very possibly going to be a part of that," Paul Root Wolpe, formerly a senior bioethicist at NASA, told DW.
Cosmic Sex Drive Conundrum
Space sex would certainly be a challenge, physicist and astronomer John Millis, speculated.
"Every push or thrust will propel the astronaut in the opposite direction. Astronauts would have to be properly anchored, not only to the space station itself, but also to each other. This makes the mechanics of the sex act difficult and probably somewhat awkward," he told BuzzFeed.
The existing knowledge of sex drive itself also remains fuzzy, as microgravity causes blood flow to reverse its course and move upwards, towards the head and chest, instead of circulating in the lower half of the body.
Amid persistent speculation on whether conditions in space prevented men from getting erections, Saralyn Mark, former senior medical adviser to NASA, was cited as saying:
"Yes, microgravity does not affect that path."
Maria Santaguida, a PhD candidate in psychology at Concordia University in Montreal, recalled:
“Former NASA astronaut Mike Mullane has gone on record saying that, during missions, he would wake up to erections that could have ‘drilled through kryptonite'."
Ron Garan, an American astronaut who went to space twice, revealed, when asked to weigh in on this subject in an Ask Me Anything Reddit thread, "I know of nothing that happens to the human body on Earth that can't happen in space."
23 July 2022, 11:51 GMT
