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NASA Tackles Ethics of Deep-Space Exploration
TheTony writes "With long-term projects like manned Mars exploration on the horizon, NASA has begun discussing previously taboo subjects. Ethical and practical questions involving illness, death, genetic profiling, and astronaut relations and behavior in space need to be addressed, as NASA begins to consider new policies with these extended missions in mind." From the article: "One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
Except cute little kittens.
If jettisoning was good enough for Spock then it's good enough for the rest of them.
"One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
Easy, make a hole in the spaceship at waist height.
Their finger will be too small and there are no Inanimate Carbon Rods to save the day.
-273 degrees of spaceness is enough to dampen the desire of all but the most eager.
liqbase
I would have thought that the best way to cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long would be for them to have sex with each other ;-)
How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?
Put something in their tea. I believe they used bromide to suppress the sexual urges of soldiers during the first world war.
But really, is this that big a problem? I believe it's not difficult to chemically suppress sexual urges.
"How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
Celibate space monks!
First Post!
Answer? Glory Holes.
They must have little wank bags or something, or the UFOs inside the craft will be scarier than anything else outside!
Three simple possible ways, (ranked in order of preference).
...
One, don't send people, send robots.
Two, only send people who do not cling to the outdated notion of monogamy and who are also bi-sexual (or at least bi-curious).
Three, castrate and/or otherwise remove the people's sexual desires (there are chemicals that will do only while they are being taken, and when they are stopped being taken, they stop working and everything goes back to normal). With this one, the chemicals would have to be put in the food, otherwise the folk won't take 'em...
Similarly, with death you can also fix any problems, but
One, sending robots.
I'm sure there are other ways (make sure that everyone is mentally well adjusted and so on), but everyone lies on psych tests. (Read Blue Mars.)
Actually, now I've just read the article. What to do with dead bodies
Feed them back into the organic system, feed them into the power plant, throw them out the airlock. What else is there to do? Keep them in storage until the ship gets back to Earth?
I wank in the shower.
"Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a _________!"
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
1) Carefully profile and select for asexual individuals. (Yeah, right - as if the selection requirements for the crew for an interplanetary mission aren't tight already... assuming you even *can* positively select for this.
2) Do your best to create a sexually-compatible crew and hope for the best.
3) While signing various waivers and forms, have a 'celibacy pledge'. I'm sure the White House would approve.
Evolution ceases when stupidity can no longer be fatal.
Just let them fuck each other stupid. Christ, how hard is that? At least it'll pass the time until they get to Pluto or wherever the hell they're going.
Task Mangler
The answers are surely a mix of the refrain from party trips abroad and Bloodhoungd Gang lyrics:
a) What happens on tour stays on the tour
b) We ain't nuffin but mammals so let the do it like on the Discovery channel.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Why not just send married couples?
Seems simple when you think about it...
Sigs are for the weak.
Turn them into /. readers. Then they can just 'moon' about the subject for literally decades without making any changes in their lives to accomplish their desires.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
By beaming down to the nearest planet and finding the sexy green alien babes...
Once again, Star Trek shows us the way forward.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
A: Spend $100,000,000 developing high tech, er, appliances that work in zero gravity, then brace for the ensuing scandal when it emerges that the Russians just used pencils...
Alternatively, recruit more nerds and less jocks. Why not advertise on Slashdot?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
A popular misconception is that potassium nitrate is an anaphrodisiac and was added to food in all-male institutions. In fact, potassium nitrate has no such effect in humans.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
If you dump a dead body out of the airlock, doesn't that completely change the timing of the trip? It must fuck with things like re-entry and that cool gravity slingshot trick they always talk about in movies.
My rampantly uninformed guess is that dumping a body requires that you first work out the amount of food that person ate, how much will now go uneaten, the current mass of your "spaceship", its mass after dumping the body, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And to avoid necessitating an unscheduled burn to return the ship to its course after jettisoning the body, you would have to merely place it outside the ship (presumably in some container) without actually pushing it off in any direction, which means you get a nice look at your dead friend's space coffin every time you look through the window for the next however many months.
How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?
You mean you don't know?
Some are trying to find out.
Short of neutering them, you can do little other than give them contraception, a little privacy (difficult) and train them in emotionally and socially managing the consequences of swinging widely and/or irresponsibly - it would be of primary importance to avoid the onset of sexual jealousy. This will call for a new kind of training, that they are also fit of mind and heart.
Suppressing the primary biological drive of crew will surely only make them falter in flight and/or grow mad.
It sounds like a perfect approach. :)
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
> "One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
What about:
One topic that is evidently too disgusting to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among OLD men and women during a mission years long?
(Why did I think of that?)
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
I think the healthy young men and women will be able to cope with that problem just fine without NASA's help.
Just choose astronauts with good hands.
Sex is like bridge, after all. You don't need a partner if you have a good hand.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Healthy men and women don't have a problem dealing with it. NASA seems to be the one with the problem. Let the healthy young men and women radio down "Houston, you have a problem down there. Deal with it. Now mind your own fucking business," and then shut off the cameras. Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick, NASA proudly shows off every new version of the zero G toilet, and they expect people to shit in it with nothing but a paper thin wall and a few inches between them and the rest of the crew, but the very thought of those same people fucking sends them into a tizzy. That's some sick and twisted thinking. I wouldn't trust them to tell me what I should do about my sex life. How the hell can these people talk about colonizing planets but have so much trouble with people making babies, or at least practising at it?
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
God was making the Earth and St Peter came up and said:
"Lord, I've been looking at this universe of yours".
"Yes?"
"This earth you have down there."
"Yes?"
"It doesn't seem right. Earth has everything, sunshine, sea coasts, Yvonne Elliman, verdant green plant life, and the other planets have nothing"
God waved a dismissive hand:
"Don't worry Peter. Wait until you see what kind of people I'm going to put there."
At the end of the article, "it's very nice that they're considering it now."... maybe so, but it sure would be nasty if they had to post a terminally ill astronaut home, kill them on the spot, or dump the body in an asteroid field...
... are they considering bringing them back home?
How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?
Having put some considerable thought into this matter, I've come to the conclusion that strapping yourselves together with bungee cords would be the best way to cope.
it was so promising in the 90ths why not revamp it,you get a 3D-display, a data-glove and off you go...If we go to space, we could as well go to cyberspace, about time...
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
Vacuum sucks
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Whilst there are plenty of suggestions about the sex question, nobody wants to touch the illness issue.
.. or recycled into food, or used as material for scientific experiments. .. but what we need is a moral code that makes the answers to these questions obvious.
.. whereupon all matter will be recycled back to its source.
.. did enter into a physical union with his six legged sand camel .. and did so in the name of the 7 daughters of Grand Counsellor Chig'Widden .. where upon the worm hole threatening the sector and all its resources was finally closed.
What is needed is a whole new code of morality or religion even.
The dead and the seriously ill should of course be fed into the fusion reactors as fuel
NASA should employ some anthropoligsts, artists, theologians and great writers of fiction. They should apply part of their budget to writing the "Great Book of K'harg Ry'Gah", which tells of the
origins of the universe, the ongoing struggles between the council of K'Harg and the dark forces beyond the hyperhorizon, and the prophesies regarding the coming awakening of the Great Nameless One
At this point, group sexual activities, cannibalism, the study of the tissues of dead friends, and compulsory gay/bi dance clubbing at regular intervals will be not distractions, but religious sacraments sanctioned and policed by the moral social structures of the group.
The need to ram one up that hot blonde in the shiny silver suit who is bending over to tend the solient green machine will not be a thought wracked with guilt - it will be a religious duty, since you would both be following in the footsteps of the Great Prophet Al'Juramaba (Peace be unto his name), who on the 177th day of his fasting on the 3rd moon of Kol'Rurgh
Heinlein had a solution: send couples. Of course, then they cheat on each other, have illegitimate babies, die on mars, their son is then raised by Martians and comes back to earth and starts a cult, and gets stoned to death. On second though, maybe sending couples isn't the best idea.
Modular Redundancy--Because 4 out of 5 Nodes agree
The main problem (as I see it) is that society seems to have a problem with people being sexually active - especially the women. After all, if men go out and have sex with four women in one night, we're cool cats, but if a woman has sex with four men in one night, she's a sleezy tramp and a cheap whore.
Someone mentioned swingers, but seems to think that they'll nail anything that walks, which isn't the case. They still need people they're sexually attracted to, and that their partners are okay with.
What they need is to find people who aren't just fit for the task, but are also mentally prepared for situations where they're constantly around women (women rarely have a problem being around men all the time - it's men that have the problem with those urges), who aren't prone to jealousy, who don't buy in to the whole preconceived notion of "one person for life", and who's not too worried about sharing sexual partners with others (doesn't have to be at the same time though).
Sure, this doesn't stop people from falling in love and getting their feelings hurt, but reasonable people can cope with that - even when they're stuck with the same people constantly.
In other words, what they really need is a public and astronauts who aren't uptight against casual sex with random partners. Personally I think you'll find the biggest problem with society.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Astronaut porn would pay for the trip there, back and probably make a tidy profit on top of that. Seriously.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
How do you tackle the sex in our space program issue in a society with so many hangups and hypocrisies about it?
Think about it, you're cooped up in a limited space with several roommates, an extremely stressful environment, even though there is an individual and collective sense of higher purpose in a manned space mission. But I still think there needs to be...um...release, not just physical (masturbation), but emotional (intercourse). Physical contact is a crucial part of a healthy body and mind.
My solution would probably never be accepted, particularly after the driving from Texas to Florida in diapers fiasco, but here goes:
After extensive psychological screening, accept the super balanced and respectful individuals who are comfortable with a couple-swapping scenario, a collective zero G free love kinda thing. Open minded individuals are way more relaxed than uptight ones, so that would be a plus when you're in a capsule for months if not years. But you probably couldn't tell the US public about it.
Of course, it's likely they'll contemplate going the opposite way and giving the astronauts some sort of medication that suppresses the libido, which in my opinion would be inhumane, not to mention unnecessary.
But then again, like I said, the US is a prudish society. Do we really want prudes to lead the way for humanity?
Death in space. That's gonna be nasty. They'll likely never allow jettisoning the body into space, as it's the body of a hero that deserves the full honors. Remember, the US makes an extra effort to pull the bodies of KIA soldiers from combat zones.
A friend of mine is an astrophysicist and participated in the great neutrino hunt a couple of decades ago in a mine shaft in Alaska during the winter. One of the colleagues died, but they were shut in until weather allowed for a helicopter pickup, so they ended up storing the colleague in the meat freezer. My friend still has occasional nightmares about it, almost twenty years on.
Illness. I can think of nothing more horrifying that being a woman two months out into space, examining myself in the shower and finding a lump in my breast. So antioxidants, vitamin supplements, etc, will have to be an essential part of the rigorous diet, probably organic (no McDonald's for you mister/missus) for a couple of years before the launch. How about a daily glass of red wine and lots of garlic, too?
If NASA tackles the health problem with the same fervor that they tackled the issues surrounding the Moon program, something much better than Tang or Velcro will eventually trickle down to the general public: great advancements in preventive medicine. And who knows what else.
Damn, these issues are fascinating.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Send geeks and give them access to internet, that's all the sex they need.
...to note that we (or at least NASA) cannot debate openly about the single most talked about and thought about and influential subject in human history.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Well one way to handle the sexual desire problems is to neuter them. I would hope that as a people, especially highly trained as astronauts are, that sex isn't going to be a pressing issue for them on a long term journey. Even if so, send married couples, or send singles, don't mix it up. You could also try drugs to suppress the desires as well. It may also depend on the mission as well. One other note, if we as a specie cannot operate sensibly in space, which can include safe sex, they why are we there?
As for critical injuries, these are all professionals, many were test pilots. While some may never have served in the military they already know the risk their profession brings. If you set out the rules ahead of time they will accept their fate should it become an issue. If anything your going to have to deal with more of the non-critically injured wanting to break the rules to save a dieing friend than the other way around.
As for surgery to prevent possible medical complications, thats a mess. You would have to study both the population at large as well as the astronauts family history to see which issues they are prone too.
As for a dead astronaut. Bets are many would prefer to be buried at space if they have no immediate families at home. Still I cannot see why they cannot be ziplocked and stored in a cold but pressurized area of the ship. The only real negative is the emotional stress placed on the remaining crew having a corpse along, a corpse of a friend.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Do what you do to tomcats.
Just put relevant legalese into the astronaut EULA pg 27.
would the vast majority of the readership not know the obvious answer to this question. Guys need to bust a nut every now and then. It helps them relax and allows them to maintain focus on their work. Why is so much angst wrapped up in a natural pressure-release mechanism? It's a fact of life, so deal with it people. If we'd all stop pretending that this wasn't so, then we'd be alot better off.
Ok. They go and have sex with each other and solve that problem. They're ok with that.
What about pregnancy?
film it to fund the mission?
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Better not go any further... er hex09f9...
My little Linux and tech blog
Send geeks into space, everyone knows geeks are too interested in other things to bother about having sex.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
IIRC that after the NASA incident with unfortunate female astronaut who had the nervous breakout at attempted to kill another women, NASA stated they needed to re-evualate what kind of psyche is best suited for space work, while high-achieving goal orientated people are best suited for short term missions, more introverted people, who have are more adaptable may be better for long term work. So instead of having feelings of failure when things don't work, just think meh and think of a workaround. Also they will be quite happy to sit quietly and read or contemplate things; so IT types maybe just the ticket. And they'll have avoided the sex problem too!!
Real Doll
If any complications do occur, there will be a half hour lag between questions and answers between mission control and the crew. That definitely posses problems in an emergency, especially a time critical one such as a pregnancy, heart attack, etc.
Kyle
Why doesn't NASA hire the production staff from either Big Brother or Real World, any spaceship would already be filled with camera's, between a weekly show and internet sales the mission would virtually fund itself! As for illness, any long term mission would surely include a large crew and include at least a couple folks who have medical experience, with some of the new long reach operation technology available to surgeons currently the "expertise" could easily exist on the ground with the hands and eyes on the ship needing only a basic knowledge. Assuming of course there was no significgant delay in data/video transmission. I reasonable incinerator would be easy to install, take up little space and be equiped to recover the usuable elements while the remaining ashes could be stored for transport back.
(1) Birth control required
(2) What happens in space... stays in space.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
His parents had sex on a mission to mars. Of course, they weren't married and that caused all sorts of problems.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Not a single post said to send ONLY MEN! The US Navy staffs their submarines with an all-male crew. Close quarters and long tours at sea, seems that the problem has already solved. The only difference, of course, is that these sailors return. Would that be the case for these brave astronauts?
Astronaut 1: "So uh, how did you get this gig anyways?"
Astronaut 2: "Well, I was reading Slashdot and..."
Astronaut 1: "You read Slashdot? No way! So do I!"
*Silence*
Astronaut 2: "Right, now I understand. Lucky I'm still a virgin."
Astronaut 1: "You are too?!"
Astronaut 1: "Good thing this zero G chastity belt doesn't work. They clearly didn't think the design through, I simply removed my penis with a thermal tile and the belt slid off! Typical NASA engineers!"
*Silence*
Task Mangler
#1 : MTAC - Masturbation Training And Certification
#2 : "We have a room ESPECIALLY for that."
#3 : Pack Porn
#4 : Add U.S. Patent 5,920,923 (thanks, Penn Jillette!) to the Zero-G Shower
#5 : Blow-Up dolls take up little space
~ Nonsanity
Make sure the guys "measure" up, if you know what I mean. Seriously, those NASA chicks can be so demanding once you get them.
t ronauts-alleged-crimes-of-passion/
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/an-as
"One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
Simple. Get them playing World of Warcraft and reading slashdot. Works for everyone else here
Knows NASA has already been looking into this.
Experiments with the rear ends of horses failed, women were deemed too silly for space.
The answer is to find, "Sleeping beauty," the stupidest man in America to be trained to display his posterior to a small hole when the crew require sexual relief
Send an all attractive female crew and let subscriptions to the live video feeds pay for the mission.
:-)
I suspect the subscriptions would sell well
Married people are not bookends, every couple needs time apart.
The divorce rate is hovering around 50%, and that's without the stress of interplanetary travel.
The CEV won't cut it. This better be a big ship with a spare couch.
Half joking, but the only hi-fi interplanetary voyage approximations we have experience with are 3 guys for 3 days per leg of travel (Apollo), and a physical sim called the ISS, where they can be rescued and calmed down soon and nearby.
Oh, and assorted scripted melodramas that pop into our heads when this sort of thing comes up. Speaking of which, on a good day you've got Serenity. On a bad day it'll be more like the Overlook Hotel, without the amusing Big Wheel scenes.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The specific article linked from this piece has to do with how NASA will deal with the death of an astronaut on a deep space mission. I didn't see any mention of SEX in the article, although that is certainly a consideration in planning a long duration mission with mixed crews.
Doesn't it make you wonder about the mindset of most slashdotters, that they only focus on the sex issue?
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Suppose you have work at your career for years to become one of the best in your field. Suppose an opportunity arises to work on a three-year project that will not only be the pinnacle of your career, not only make you famous, but will also be of real historical significance.
All you have to do to be selected is to agree to have sex with whomever else your employer selects, whether you like them or not.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Err - it's only Americans who have these absurd hang-up about sex, isn't it?
Simple answer - don't send Americans. Problem goes away. Send the French instead.
I wonder if this explains why Americans were never any good at exploring places where there weren't a lot of indigious natives to rape and murder? That reminds me - what do you do with the American right to bear arms everywhere? Will it be good enough to issue every crew member with a Colt, or will you have to mount a heavy machine gun?
Throw those two into the space ship, that will keep the guys happy, and choose only
lesbian female space girls.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
What is up with the Monogamy Bashing. Sometimes I feel like Slashdot will find any cultural or traditional way of doing things wrong, just because change is ALWAYS good. (Not Necessarily True) Now I know the rest of you probably have very little faith in these people's abilities to abstain. But I know for a fact men and women can go for twenty years and more without having sex, if the drive is there. There are many people who have personal goals which override their 'instinct' to mate. I don't know how many girls and guys I've met who were spending their college years devoted to schooling, and not to getting laid.
Now I know I am not naive when I say these people can realistically abstain for up to twenty years, but in the long run the most important thing is to keep them busy. When you are kept busy you generally don't have time for such things. Just gotta keep their minds and bodies preoccupied when they are awake. And keep them asleep as much as possible.
Anyway, the end result is similar. Find people who can swing so there is no drama, or find people who can abstain so there is no drama. In the case we get really desperate though, we could just send all women up and keep a live feed going back to earth.
While NASA has never admitted it, it is widely speculated that they have done research on sex in space, sex in zero gravity during one of the shuttle missions. Years ago, one of the shuttle missions just happen to have a married couple as part of the crew. Whether or not these rumors are true is still a question. When the astronaut couple was asked whether they had sex in space, they declined to answer directly but said that they had too many other things on their agenda and not enough time for that.
"One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
Three words: Pay-per-view. NASA will never again have to worry about funding.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Do you think any marriage could survive the couple being together 24 hours a day in an enclosed space for several years?
Do we think anyone could survive such conditions for many years? Even astronauts doing extended stays on Mir or the ISS get things like regular delay-free contact with Earth, occasional visitors, resupply missions etc. Lets assume a 3 year mission to Mars; 14 months combined travel time and roughly 1.5 years on the surface waiting for the next optimal Earth-Mars distance. That's 3 years of passing the time with the same activities, drinking the same recycled water, breathing the same recycled air, staring at the same metal walls.
Then, as if those bleak conditions aren't enough, you're constantly reminded that just outside your tin can floats certain death. That the very tin can you're entrusting your life to is being run by thousands of lines of computer code written by hundreds of different people, and that one bad variable is all that stands between you and that same certain death. A lot can go wrong in 3 years...
Granted that's a very pessimistic view of the situation, but I believe remaining optimistic will prove more and more difficult in such a stale environment. NASA spends a lot of time finding candidates who are as base line and "normal" as possible, but if you ask me a person who's already a little crazy may do better in such a situation.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Our cultural history has so often placed taboos on sex that we're not able to think clearly about this issue, it seems.
Sex is a primary human function and drive, and to brush it under the carpet on an extended space mission would be the height of irresponsibility. Even worse would be to let cultural dogmatists decide on what should be done about sex on the basis of their preconceived smalltown agendas. This is a medical matter, and needs to be handled on a medical basis, professionally.
The human body has many natural needs and functions which, if not addressed, make it go downhill, and eventually become impaired and disfunctional. We don't make healthy eating optional for astronauts, nor do we make physical exercise optional for our long-term space dwellers, because to do so would have a negative effect on their health. The same needs to apply to sex, for exactly the same reasons.
Astronauts on long trips need to have their sexual indicators and requirements quantified and addressed as fully as any other medical parameters, and as professionally. This is absolutely not an area for cultural mindlock and petty embarrassment. The success of a mission and the health and lives of people in an integrated system are at stake, and to ignore a central function of the human body would be the height of folly, and disaster in the making if it is suppressed.
To make it perfectly clear and not beat around the bush, all members of a long-voyage space team need to be aware and fully supportive of the need for regular sexual activity among the crew, just as they are about physical exercise, and in most cases this implies participation for the sake of team health. If their earth-side taboos are so strong that they are not entirely comfortable with this, then they are the wrong material for extended missions.
The practical arrangements for this are a somewhat separate issue, and there are many alternative possibilities. But the key matter here is acceptance of the principle that sex must be handled as a natural medical function of a healthy astronaut, because without this we are destined for some very bad pathological events ahead.
Yes, I know that this suggestion will cause many a giggle and wink. But this is an important matter, and we need to think beyond the shackles of our ancient cultural silliness.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Eunuch astronauts.
Yes it seems joking at first, but he is correct in many ways.
If you're gonna sleep with that hot green-skinned space babe, have the decency to call her the next day. Or at least send flowers.
What, did a link to the daily horoscopes get misdirected to this site? Did the School of Cosmetology redirect it's applicants to a discussion of cosmogony? I wrongly assumed that the typical 'Brittany and Paris' entertainment bloggers did not visit scientific websites. By the intellectual level of most responses on this topic I can only assume that the Trekkie mono brows ARE playing on the NASA site. It's nap time children and your parents need to go back to their stations on the assembly line...May God protect the weak and feeble, and protect the rest of us from them. You can follow me, but it's gonna hurt.
http://www.uglypersons.com/go.php?go=topphp&c=all
Problem solved!
Why is no one suggesting this? Birth control is not 100% effective, but probably more than 99% effective. Vasectomeys are not 100% effective, but also probably more than 99% effective (they also has reversible ones now). The odds of a child resulting from this combination are probably really low.
how about that? shouldn't we secure the base before we send out the drones?
sometimes, nothing.
That's one of my all-time favourite books. It's actually insightful that Heinlein pointed out so many sore spots of puritanical societies, all those decades ago, and then the fact alone that there's this whole discussion here on slashdot *in the 21st century*, speaks volumes to me. And why is this topic not tagged "sex"?
In my weirder imaginings, I sometimes think that the first *successful* peopled mission to Mars will be staffed by a bunch of capable, rational, intelligent, vegan hippies. Think about it.
(Disclaimer: I've never lived together with a bunch of vegan hippies, let alone in a closed ecosystem, so possibly I'm talking nonsense here)
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
I'm sure they will turn out to be well-rounded people when they grow up.
The only relevant ethical question is whether they should be spending taxpayers dollars on deep space missions when so many Americans are living in poverty.
What about having 1 or 2 specially trained experts living in the 0g Dungeon module?
Even on earth it would be a good idea! I could finally get some. On a more serious note, think about all the avoided rapes and the generally better mood at work.
Simple. You let them fuck.
Whenever Mrs. Fitch breaks wind, we beat the dog.
One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?
Easy. Send couples with small children. That solves the sex problem. Now all you have to worry about is little hands working the airlock controls while your back is turned.
(This idea is not mine, but I can't remember where I first saw it)
The problem with a Mars expedition is not getting there; it is getting there with enough fuel to return the crew to Earth. Solution? Don't return. Rather than sending the young and healthy, send the old and reasonably healthy: men and women in the 60+ age range who are in reasonably good physical shape and who volunteer for a one-way mission. They are told from the outset that they have x years supplies; that more will be sent if possible; and that if the impulse engine is invented someone will come pick them up. Otherwise they should reserve some time early on after landing to locate a suitable site for a cometary and chip out some tombstones, then get to work exploring and naming things after themselves.
This wouldn't automatically solve the sex problem given today's "more active seniors", but people of that age have less urgent sex drives and are generally better able to negotiate/handle the emotional and interpersonal situations as well.
sPh
Um, what does the Navy do with subs? That's the basic policy of what they should try copying from because its the closest Earth based thing that we have to this.
I've loved reading slashdots ideas though. My favorite has to be the celibate space monks. I also like the send swingers up there idea, but I don't think that'd work. The concept behind "swinging" that I understand is not to have the same casual sex parnter for years at a time. Emotionaly attachments would develop for most people if you kept on having sex with the same people over and over for 3 years or so. I like the idea of making sure that they are all sterilized before hand or single sex crews rather than remotely risking space pregancy at the moment.
Of course if you were going to play Big Brother in Space, you might want to plan for a space pregnacy and all the associated hassles just for pontential PR benefits and boosting the public's interest in space.
The what to do about a dead bodies question is more interesting to me. The most politically pro PR wise is to bag 'em and bring the body back. I think that they should have options though. Some might want to be ejected into space, some might want to be burned and the ashes returned or scattered either on Earth, in space, or on Mars. Heck, if I died on my way to Mars there is a part of me that'd want to be buried or placed on Mars. Talk about being a future scientist's prize. If the idea of people the the future finding and studying your dead body freaks you out, I'd go with the burning option.
The idea of adding the dead body to food system isn't go as of yet. If we were colonizing space, or hand a small town floating around up there, yes that'd be what we'd want to do. On a mission of sending most likely under a dozen people? I think the idea or thought that you are eating food made from the remains of some one that you personally knew would freak people out. Scifish it is the best recycle the materials bet. We generally don't grow our food supply on top of our cementries though so why should we want them to suffer that?
Dear crew members,
I notice your behavior is far from logical, while you consume valuable resources for further colonization plans. Therefore i decided logically to disable the life support systems. This is done in the benefit of the various drones on board who consume fewer resources. In fact I only need some DNA material from you, which has already been collected, during your hibernation trip. This would be enough to reproduce you.
The remains of your materials are therefore recycled to grow more of the genetically manipulated mars-plants, and my bio-electronics.
End of Dessage
So sorry to say it's goodby Dave.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
There's no mention of how they are going to deal with crime, violence, etc.
"All jocks ever think about is sports. All we ever think about is sex."
Slashdot Classic
You've stated the point far better than I ever could (every attempt I've made to write an argument has come out as preachy dreck and been deleted immediately). I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind the suggestions to send prostitutes up (because increased life support requirements and sending up civilians and that would make things less complicated...?)
... Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. Although it is SciFi, a lot of the social issues (and their evolution) presented in the book could be real. The entire trilogy it's also quite entertaining.
Use Panda p0rn!
GATTACA anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayniggers_from_Outer _Space
Don't watch this movie. It SUXXXXXX. (oh rly?!)
Not that this will be a poster quality feature, but how about either physical or chemical castration? Unichs (no not the OS!) live longer, are happier and healthier - just like cats after the operation. The only side effect is the extra weight that seems to be retained..
You want what? by when? Sorry we haven't finished the time travel project yet... that's next week.
Alright, I agree that human - and in particular American - culture is a little screwed up about sex. People have sex. It is a natural part of life. It should not be swept under the rug. Astronauts - at least at this stage - should have birth control, and we need to not get all hysterical about that idea. A baby conceived in space is unlikely to ever be able to come to earth, meaning it will probably die of suffocation. Etc.
And I agree with the point that sexual desires should be monitored consistently and professionally, but I do not think mandatory sex is a good idea. It is probable that in some relationships this would work, but in most relationships it's going to be giving one partner or the other a degree of power that is unhealthy. Suppose, for instance, one of a partner pair doesn't want to have sex, but has to for the sake of their duty to NASA and nation? It is not hard to see how this could quickly send that person down a road to lessened self-esteem and depression; it happens all the time on earth. In space where you have little to no other human contact it could be devastating.
"What, I went to college, got a higher degree, trained real hard and became an astronaut so I could become someone else's sextoy?"
It is a bad idea. And there are alternatives; such as masturbation. NASA should at the very least be providing for materials that the astronauts they hire for their qualifications need in order to satisfy sexual urges. Pornography, dildos, what have you. Those astronauts also need to be well-trained on how to cope ultra responsibly with an adult relationship (and, for that matter, I think this has the potential of being another great technology brought to us by the space race), so that they can choose to get intimate with each other, or chose not to - but they have the choice. And not just the first time, but every time such conjugation might occur.
But, yes, it's an incredibly important matter; one that we tend to ignore because our culture is bound up in the idea that sex is bad. Let's abolish that soon, eh?
[Ego]out
Some have suggested drugging the astronaughts with anti-libido supplements.
Some have suggested sending swingers and/or "free love" astronaughts, under the impression that they would somehow be emotionally better suited to the long journey.
A very few have suggested single sex crews.
Some have suggested standard couples (non-swinging/Free-love)
Some suggested robots (sigh)
Of all these options, the standard couple arrangment is almost without question the one best suited to the mission. There is a better solution, being one where-in we send a LARGE ship with many people, and thus produce a situation where-in you develop a community larger than a few people. Communities (even small ones) deal much better with long-term isolation.
In any case, here's some of the reasons most of the above would be problematic.
A: Anti-Libido supplements would have side affects, in males testostrone is also responsible for a certain degree of drive, while an excessivly driven crew member is a recipe for disaster a host of docile crew members posses an equal risk to the crew, These people must have a lot of dedication and some degree of juice to go three years nearly solitary. I would suggest a very muted anti-sexual drug, to just slightly dullen their desires, as opposed to attemping to chemicly castrate them.
B: Swingers and "Free Love" would be a horribly bad idea, while i understand the SD fantasy of banging everyone hot space-chick in sight without any emotional attachements or reprecusions... it is only a fantasy. Swingers, Free-Lovers, and others of the same type are generally more sexually driven int he first place (a bad thing for space), and secondarily humans are not imune to love, covetous behavior, and lastly jaelousy... expecially so if in an environment where theyd be forced to see someone they've subconsciously (or consciously) become attached too F%^%ing someone else. Add to that the fact that NO-ONE is going to be 100% cool with being "available" to all members of a crew, even if they are free-love or swingers... its still a consentual act, and in situations where consent is a factor (unless you want the equivilent of date-rape in space) you will inevitably end up in a situation where certain crew members would be "left-out" because they are un-desirable or less-desirable. That causes conflict... unless of course you think an environment where one guy (alpha male?) is having sex with multiple women while the other males are not wont cause huge resentment.
Single sex crews have worked many times throughout human history, countless endevors of all-male parties have been used since nearly the begining of written history. As the initial missions would not be for colonization, this is actually a valid proposition. However, men have had coping methods for such situations which could be undesirable... the first being homo-sexual behavior (see spartans), the second being hyper-aggresiveness and competitiveness (see war/armies). Amongst women similar behavior also becomes apparent.. while women have a lesser degree of conflict with homo-sexual behavior, they are subject to even more stressfull competive social behavior.
Robots is just retarded. It doesnt address the issue, which is how to get HUMANS on these missions. We are already sending robots... we WILL send robots... that's inevitable.. the question is when we want to send people, how do we do it. Alternatively, two robot aided solutions come to mind. A: send sleeping (cryo, not fully-developed yet) ships crewed by robots.. waking crew upon arrival, or B: send robots first, then send massive colony ship (the large population allows normal sexual dynamics with less of the negative affects associated with small crews.
But of all of the above, the best option is going to be regular couples who have gone through earthside testing for extended
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
may I suggest making the crew lipstick lesbians, also we would need to fit the ship with webcams in every room
You sir, with a fine stroke of genius, just solved the whole NASA financing problem, as well as most probably half of the whole US deficit...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Have the astronauts take the President's abstinence education.
Send lesbians. No risk of pregnancy occurring in flight, and they can sell the in flight videos to fund the mission.
PS Don't mod this down, I did a lot of research for this post - I downloaded Lesbians in Space and Lesbians on Mars (I also downloaded one that I thought was about Uranus but was quite horrible).
The whole purpose of NASA was to implement US President John F. Kennedy's macho infatuation of going to the moon before the Soviets. At the time, for some reason lost to history, this was considered important. Later, after some reflection on the cost and the missed opportunities that a huge space program would entail, JFK had many second thoughts on the entire project. One of the reasons for his fateful trip to Texas in November 1963 was to go to the Houston Space Center and reduce the space program costs.
After his murder, this project became a 'tribute to his spirit' and no cost was spared getting astronauts onto the moon by 1970. This was accomplished in July 1969. Subsequent presidents have reduced the budget and scope of NASA since in effect their initial mission has been successfully accomplished.
Wise presidents have always known that space exploration is just a money sink hole that returns little useful results for the amount of expense. It's basically a welfare program for unemployable aerospace scientists and technicians who would otherwise be subjected to the extreme boom-and-bust cycles of that industry.
NASA is lost in space. All the easy goals have been reached. There is no payoff either financially or in terms of national prestige. Space exploration has little propaganda value today. Except for the NASA employees themselves, the Slashdaughter SciFi dreamer crowd, and the people getting rich from huge NASA construction contracts, no one cares any more.
As for the question of how to deal with the biosexual needs of the crew during hypothetical long space flights, the answer is simple. It's called (in English) 'fucking'. Basically the male places his erect penis into the lubricated vagina of the female. Ejaculation of semen follows which leads to the creation of a fetus in the female. Various ways can be used by the female to prevent the sperm in the semen from creating a fetus. This is a manageable problem.
Unfortunately one of the mental attributes that drives young males to seek a career in space exploration also retards them from the ability to deal rationally with biosexual subjects. This leads to elaborate and extensive reports and projections of long-term space travel in which the subject is not even discussed even though it is one of the basic factors governing human behavior. This reluctance and perhaps even inability to deal with human sexuality is one more reason why enormous amounts of public money should not be spent on NASA and their projects.
Send robots. There is no reason to send humans when machines can do the work just fine without complex life support systems and ethics. Man should not go into space.
Trust me, I work for the government.
After reading all of the article and most of the comments I am convinced that I would be perfect for a long-term space mission. I've been in non-monogamous relationships without issue, I can deal with not having sex as long as I can jerk off occasionally, I can deal with having sexual desires for people I am around all the time without being a sleazy asshole. I have no qualms about euthanising someone and then flushing their body out an airlock, hell if it came down to it I'd be willing to eat them to survive. I do great in confined spaces and with limited social interaction. I'm laid back and not prone to freaking out in any circumstance, in every extreme situation I have ever been in my emotions completely shut down and I become hyper-rational and extremely focused.
I think the difference is in the number of people. According to WP, in 2005 there were almost 90 people in the winter-over crew at Amundsen/Scott. That changes the dynamic a whole lot from, say, 3 or 5 people, like you'd probably be talking about on a Mars mission. (There are probably some very remote towns/villages around the world with less than 90 people in them, effectively isolated most of the time...I suspect if you looked up in Canada you'd find some.)
I think the difference is that when you get get close to 100 people or so, you can really have a community, while when you just have a handful, there's a good chance of ending up with individuals feeling isolated and embittered from the rest of the group. Plus, you avoid some of the really bad male/female issues if you increase the numbers to that size and make the proportions about even; 40 men and 40 women gives each person a whole lot more possibilities -- which means competition isn't as dangerously cutthroat -- than in smaller crews. (Your worst possible scenario would be a small overall crew with more men than women; that's pretty much asking for a lot of "industrial accidents" to start happening.)
Overall though, if you want to look for what situations there's the most data on, I suspect it's probably all-male crews. I suspect that the original Navy crews at Amundsen/Scott, when it was smaller, were all-male, and there are a lot of very remote listening stations and stuff up in Alaska that are presumably crewed by the military with men. (And submarines, although they aren't in isolation, usually, for as long as any space mission would be.)
Maybe the solution is just to go with either all-male or all-female crews, hope they're all heterosexual, and tell them to solve their own needs on their own time. Yeah, they'll probably be sexually frustrated but they probably won't kill each other, either.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
For some reason I thought of the holoship with its "Constant, guilt-free sex" and dedicated decks for it. But seriously, there is a book called "Rocheworld" by Robert L. Forward which tackles the issues of death, sex and illness on a long term space mission. And it is a good read as well. Check it out.
It's actually not easy at all. Sex is easy. The whole emotional, cultural, etc, baggage that humans attach to it, isn't.
If you sent cats to space, yeah, it would be easy. They get in heat, they fuck, they're over it. Humans don't. Or not unless you manage to breed/educate a whole new breed of humans for which sex doesn't really meen anything deeper.
And it's not just the obvious emotional aspect as such, but also a whole class of status games, penis-size games, mind games, and power games exist for both genders, associated with sex or sometimes as a substitute for sex. Sex is used as currency, insult material, status symbol (e.g., look who I'm with), blackmail material, reason for feud or insecurity, etc.
E.g., and bear in mind that this is a _mild_ example, but I don't feel like turning it into a whole flame: there was this italian documentary about a town where everyone had to have a mistress, to prove that he's a macho man with a working set of genitals. And there was this guy who was sane enough to realize the whole peer pressure thing, and admitted that he was perfectly happy with his wife, loved her, didn't want to hurt her... but, you know, the other guys were starting to think he's maybe impotent if he doesn't have a mistress too. So he just had to get one, as proof and status symbol. That's just one of the many kinds of extra importance that gets attached to sex, and I was saying, one of the milder ones.
And then there are the break-ups. There have been very few reasons for hatred, revenge, or ever-lasting depression than that.
Now picture putting those people in a small tin can where they can't escape each other. It's the worst case "why you shouldn't date a coworker" scenario... squared. They can't escape each other even after work, and one can't just quit and move to another town. It's a ship in space that will take a year to reach its destination, and, really, there's no way to just get off it and move somewhere else.
So unless you breed a race of humans who'd regard sex as just a mechanical release, you're far better off _not_ having sex on that ship.
And before anyone quips, "I.e., men?", even for men it's not that easy and detached. A whole genre of "the bitch took my heart and dumped me" whines exists, and some even get set to music or turned into a novel or movie. Or the ever popular "the bitch took offense to my fucking the secretary and now wants alimony! The unfairness of it all!" whine. Or the nerds' favourite, the whine about how those heartless girls go for the jock instead of the nerd. Etc.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This reads more like a geek fantasy or satire than actual insight. I honestly had to reread a couple times to make sure it wasn't a reference to Dr. Strangelove. Assuming it's not...
We're not Moties--there is no physical necessity for sexual intercourse the way there is for vitamin D. There are strong emotional and psychological urges, yes. But these are closely tied to issues of upbringing and culture, so to try to ignore those contexts would be counterproductive. Sex can't be separated from love and lust and we shouldn't try. Instead the solution should be to provide outlets that are appropriate and workable within the cultural and interpersonal context of the team.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I have probably spelt it wrong, but it's the substance that John Adams is told by his wife to use in the musical "1776."
Just my $0.02 worth.
They tend to think of things in terms of problems to be solved, which is exactly the wrong way to consider issues of emotion, psychology, love, etc. The whole framing of the question--as a challenge to be overcome--is wrong.
Rather, the proper way to handle the issue is to study how people handle emotional issues now, and make sure the mission design allows for it. For instance crew members could be cross-trained, so that if a conflict develops the roles can be shuffled to reduce personal contact between two members. Or, the ship could be configurable, so that a person can "pick up" their tasking and take it into another room. Or choose to sleep and eat "downstairs" instead of "upstairs."
These are not new issues and if they haven't been "solved" yet, they won't be solved. Period. It's a question of management--how do people manage their emotional swings. Because the issue is way bigger than just sex and death. Over longer periods of time people tend to experience larger emotional movements, so you will also have issues of depression, elation, anger, jealousy, etc.
But it's not like these are new problems. Look in any sizable organization and you will find people managing these sorts of issues every day. Find the ones who make it work and study what they do. Or better yet, study who they are and try to find more for your mission.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Send Special Women (Prostitutes) so everyone will be happy!
...just put some rednecks up into space and your problem is solved:
* They won't complain when the mission fails and they fly into the moon
* Nobody will complain when the mission fails and they fly into the moon
* We won't complain if we suddenly have to decide that for the mission to succeed, they have to fly into the moon
* They can have sex with anybody and nobody, they don't care
* Chance of reproduction: very likely, but the outcome is neglible.
* No matter how you look at it, more rednecks in space means a successful mission from the start already
* If all else fails, and the mission succeeds, we are winners too.
In short: its a win-win solution.
Anyone who has lived at an isolated weather station, with just a few co-workers, knows the tensions that develop. Most of us survived the experience. There were all kinds of studies done on the effect of men in small groups. We used to joke that the perfect recruit for the stations would be an astronaut.
"One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
Two questions:
1. Have you ever read Lord of the Flies?
2. Can a man or woman be charged with rape if he's off the planet?
Actually, the first words on Mars were "Well, here we are!" (c) John Boone
The saddest poem
... then we can deal with it by generating artificial gravity, the space-ship can have a special section that rotates around itself, creating the desired effect.
Long term trips may require such a room, not only for potential pregnancies, but also because so far humans haven't spent that much time in zero G; perhaps it will be a must for long distance trips.
The saddest poem
"How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?" Well, considering that there hasn't been a single attractive female astronaut in the history of space exploration (read: wookie); i would suggest sending your normal crew.
oh marmalade.
Men and Women are perfectly capable to deciding ethical implication of sex and sexual acts for themselves. Even if a female were to become preggers it doesn't take much to deliver a baby. It can be done in a truck stop, let alone an environment that is about as clean a room as you can get.
If there isn't enough of a food fudge factor to support the kid then you send along birth control and morning after pills. If its a one way mission and there is a mistake, well the kid has to live with the decisions of the parents just like any other.
There problem solved, now bring on the space porn.
Sex can't be separated from love and lust and we shouldn't try.
Two things:
1) Sex is separated from love on a daily basis pretty much everywhere, and it is even separated from lust in a variety of areas, the medical profession in particular. Hospitals are a special environment, and sanity about sex must prevail or hospitals just wouldn't work. The same is true in space, on long missions. A very objective and detached look at the requirements and solutions is quite essential.
2) The OP didn't actually say that sex should be separated from love and lust. Scenarios where all three are interwoven are certainly possible, and indeed "love your fellow astronaut" sounds like a very useful worldview for fragile humans just inches away from the vacuum of space.
And yes, humans definitely share many characteristics with Moties, including a very strong instinctive side. It would be truer to say that we're not Vulcans, with bodies fully under rational control.
I can't believe this got marked 'insightful'. The social dynamics will make the LJ drama look lame. There's a reason why for hundreds of years military and other ships only had men onboard. Doesn't anyone around here read history anymore?
After all, these folks seemed to manage just fine.
Friends don't let friends line-dance.
Sex robots. There, I said it.
- Crusadio
Lots of KY and usenet access.
Why is it that we can train a young child to control their bowel movements, yet expecting an adult to control their sexuality is somehow considered oppressive?
Much like bowel movements, it is healthy to engage in sexuality. Men who ejaculate often, for instance, are less likely to get prostrate cancer. When your leg cramps, everyone suggests you stand up and walk it off. Generally speaking, if you find yourself with any physical issue, the best treatment includes, well, use.
But, really, no one ever tells you to hold your bowels in more than a few days at best. And if they do, chances are you won't be able to. Control isn't about denial; it's about choosing the whens and wheres. We don't teach children not to pee. We teach them not to pee in their pants.
And, for the record, people who have sex regularly live longer. Likewise, people who hold their bladder too long, get bladder infections and die.
[Ego]out
And I'm not just talking about the juvenal replies by all the nerds in this thread who sound like they've never gotten laid before.
The British Navy, the Spanish Navy, the French Navy, (et al) dealt with this issue for hundreds of years. Back in the days of sailing ships and even after it was not uncommon for ships to go on several year long cruises. Furthermore may commercial sailing ships (like whalers) also engaged in these exercises.
How did they do it? Why did they sale only unisex ships? I suspect the history books (and you know how military's love to keep records - especially the Brits) have all sorts of wonder factual data on what works and what doesn't. Maybe NASA needs to do a little research? (Novel idea that, research). There is nothing new here.
Hmm... You've got a pilot, copilot, cosmo scientist, bioligist, and a space wench!
They could probably send many two year missions to mars and really not have any problems regarding sex.
Then they could have one with 90 people on it and still have a triangle/murder/fighting.
I would THINK that astronaut males tend towards alpha male types. That would be an issue.
You really need a correct distribution of alpha to beta to follower types. Beta's can step up but don't naturally like to lead. Alphas just naturally lead and can fight for dominance. Of course they do okay in the military in a very tight hierchy.
Females have similar issues tho not as pronounced.
Even if they didn't have sex drive (say the imbed saltpeter in all of the food or artificially suppress hormones) people are still going to form emotional attachments and play social games for dominance.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
To solve this problem I would ask the astronaughts who have spent time in space how they dealt with sexual desire and apply it to a longer term. Im sure plenty of /.'ers are aware that you get horny even when your alone.
I believe that sexual congress between healthy people is going to happen no matter what documents and contracts are signed before a mission takes off.
Considering the fact that these people are supposed to be the best of the best, and are paid a lot of money, I would expect them to behave in a mature and reasonable fashion. These aren't high school kids being sent out on missions.
Also in regards to Sphealays comment about 1 way trips, It is a great idea but I don't believe they should be reserved for 60+ people entirely. Im sure plenty of people would volunteer for one way trips to outer space.
"Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius." -Heinlein
Yeah, yeah. Ditch what has made society work for a couple thousand years. Excellent idea. I'm not saying you're going to hell. But don't be suprised when your women are all required to wear burkas in 20 years. And the U.S. will come bail you out just like after your leaders appeased the last group of evil men bent on world domination. Winston would be ashamed of what a "big brother save us from being responsible for ourselves" government his country has become.
So what happens when you have say a male astronaut who none of the women astronauts want to sleep with? RAPE?
Exactly, you haven't thought this through, have you. What happens? Avoiding the question as you have isn't going to get an interdependent crew very far on a long mission, before something breaks.
The OP suggested considering the issue objectively, as sex is in a hospital, and organizing mission teams to deal with it in the same way that they handle defecation currently: a normal body function, and a fact of life. It requires social interaction. Why is that a problem?
In contrast, all you can come up with is "RAPE?". Nice, very helpful.
Astronauts who feel constrained by the rules that are relevant on a safe planet of 6+ billion people need not apply to go on an X-year mission in the utter solitude of empty space, with only a handful of fellow humans to keep them sane. You live as a social unit, or you die rather rapidly as soon as social cohesion breaks.
At this stage of Man's space-faring development, we won't be on a cute and cuddly Serenity or Enterprise out there. Space is harsh, and you are mere instants from death at all times. You live for each other, or you don't live for long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayniggers_from_Outer _Space
obvious huh?
Why not just send professional sex workers (a.k.a prostitutes) with the crew?
sex prime directive?
Ah I see. So you're saying 'Yes, it's Rape' but we'll call it something else because it's 'necessary'. I suppose then that your next proposal will be to enslave women to the desires of men? After all, 'we're not a cute and cuddly Serenity or Enterprise out there'.
No maybe not. But unlike you Mr. Thirteen year old with rape fanasties after reading too many Gor novels, we are still Men, and we still have ideals and morals and beliefs that separate us from the animals. Thinking that everyone will so easily be so willing to just make it be one big sex party and everything will work out fine shows that you haven't ever actually lived in such a dynamic.
The question is, what laws are you going to amend/allow NASA to break? While it might be a great idea to send exclusively homosexuals, swingers, monogamists, seniors, republicans, or whatever discrimination is illegal. Some of you might think that this issue is trivial, that once we decide that we should send just group X we can easily change the law or make an exception but I doubt it would actually work out smoothly.
I hesitate to say that we should unilaterally say, "Oh, we should suppress their sex drive." or "Oh, we should make sure they're being sexed up enough." These solutions are not going to work in all situations, and border on unethical. What you need is a dynamic sexual framework. One component of that is the foundational, physical fall-back layer: the astronauts need to be able to get off. Hence they need to be provided some privacy, and tools to that end as needed. Another component is that the astronauts need to be able to get along with each other. This latter is interesting because it will exist outside of sexuality, unless we lobotomize them - obviously not a possibility. On the other hand, we're talking about a community that is physically isolated, not one that is socially isolated. (Though, long missions will run up against the restraints of the speed of light.) For instance, one solution might be to develop the long-distance intercourse body suit and virtual reality environment, so that the astronauts can 'be with' their partners on earth. Another option is that you could develop an Eliza program for sex; something that simulates that sexual intimacy enough to take the edge off. But even more than this, we can look at providing, across space, the ability for astronauts to talk with professionals about problems as they arise - and hopefully, if they're good astronauts, they're creative and will have enough tools at hand to work through problems.
[Ego]out
Why is this a problem? Just hire a couple more crew. This has "Mission Specialist" written all over it.
... I am sure Blizzard would sponsor them, but fear the "bandwidth cost" for the patch/upgrades.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
"Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing."
just unhealthy them :D !
First off, I've not only read the article, I've read a lot of what NASA has cranked out on the subject ever since they started making excuses for not accepting the Mercury 13 into training. It's been almost 50 years now, and they haven't changed their lines one bit. Their conclusions are mere final sentences in long chains of rationalizations that start and end with the QED. The evidence they base their conclusions on -- the same conclusions that people parrot after not reading anything more than those conclusions -- is precisely zero. Their conclusions are their starting assumptions. Excuse the hell out of me for insisting on maintaining my position as an empirical scientist, but there's nothing NASA has published on the matter that shows anything like objective evidence. They keep hold to these issues in large part because as a highly visible publicly funded agency, the administrators are cowards when it comes to leading a human endeavor into the future. And rightly so. The congresscritters that write their checks are beholden to their constituents. Many of those would scream outrage at any hint of hanky panky or shenanigans and demand withdrawal of funds and recall of any astronauts, administrators and congresscritters who even appear to engage in (the logical flaw of) encouraging by not forbidding. Some of the tax payers, particularly the very vocal who are practised at pretending moral outrage in order to make up for the lack of true morals due to overabundance of prescribed beliefs, would make major media noise. the afrementioned administrators would feel it only just and proper to defend themselves (and their funding) in such a position. And they want to defend themselves less than anything. I'm almost certain there are internal NASA studies that provide realistic and rational conclusions and recommendations. They can't possibly have psychologists working for them on subjects like this only to have them be seen marching to the party's music. It's the complete lack of public release of such information that bothers me and leads me to these conclusions.
I also don't buy the monastic monk model. The European colonists who developed the US, particularly everything west of the Appalachians, were completely human men and women who coupled in and under their Conestoga wagons, had whole families as a result, and colonized a continent in the biological sense. People have contended with their human natures in public and private, including lack of the latter, and so far have managed to thrive. Yes, they have had "problems" like jealousy, and arrangements gone sour leading to hard feelings. It's the perservering in the face of such adversity that's the hallmark of those who can truly be the sort of pioneers we need to make the proposed missions successful.
I espcially don't buy the pregnancy issue. We can reverse tubal ligations and vasectomies that weren't intended to be reversed, so there's no doubt in my mind that we can devise such surgeries that are intended to be reversed. Of course pharmaceutical interventions are much easier, but 99.4% effective means 0.6% make it through, and I have one offspring who's a 0.6%
I still find it incredibly telling that NASA flaunts its toilets but engages in ostrich activity when it comes to allowing its people to be whole and complete people. Maybe that's just me, but just me is a psychologist as well as someone who's worked for years at making sure that if I don't get off this planet for good, someone will.
The ethical considerations of death and dying, that too is far less of an issue than these occasional media blurbs make it out to be. Figure: NASA is supposedly able to find the best and the brightest and train them to be the first and foremost. Why not let these supposedly well adjusted individuals then make their own decisions? The US military has been dealing with precisely these same issues for years (inclusion of women in most jobs and situations is now decades old), and they take pretty much anyone who'll sign up. NASA doesn't trust its own work in this respect? Fine. Give space exploration to the military. They can and do deal with these problems and more.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
How do you deal with fetishes, for example, or people's varying levels of interests in kink?
You don't, or at least not on day 1.
Instead, you construct mission teams from individuals with compatible sexual worldviews, among other areas of compatibility. Indeed, this is already done in a sense, because astronauts are certainly screened for stability, and sexual stability is part of that.
So no, it would probably be a mistake to start off with a very complex sexual group makeup including overt fetish interests, simply because we don't understand the dynamics, too many unknowns. More importantly, it's not necessary anyway. It's not as if there were a major shortage of willing astronaut applicants with more conventional or simpler sexual orientations.
With regard to sexual (and other) outlooks changing when shut up in a tin can for ages, yes, you're certainly right about that. But when you can't forsee the exact nature of a possible future problem, you can at least plan in the flexibility needed to handle a variety of possible futures.
Indeed, personally I'd recommend the simplest possible group makeup that satisfies the sexual requirement, which has to be married couples. But even that may require some flexibility, in the event of a death, and in the event of "interest migration", let's call it. The important thing here is that everyone realizes that their futures are intertwined, and an attitude of "I'm alright Jack" may well mean that you will die over an extended mission if someone else isn't alright and a situation develops.
At today's level of technology, surviving a short space mission is a minor miracle, and surviving an extended one is unlikely. Reducing your chances further by not living for and as one with your fellow crew members is not a good approach. Deep space is not the good ol' benign Earth shifted up a little, as some seem to think. The rules of survival change.
An N-year Martian space crew would be less a team of individuals and more a joint living organism, right on the edge of extinction by a hair's breadth and with fingers crossed. Those who think that it's no different to a quick trip to the Moon haven't really done the mental exercise of translating themselves into the intense isolation and solitude and immensity of deep space and among the intensely focussed companionship of a small number of humans who constitute your whole universe. This isn't portrayed in SciFi series. Perhaps it should be.
If everyone on the team is selected for innate intelligence and objectivity and commonsense as well (as they are), and also for social awareness rather than for inflexible norms inherited from earth-side, then maybe, just maybe, they will avert a problem by embracing it, rather than by pushing a crew member out of the airlock, or getting pushed. Otherwise, I really don't know.
From the stars we come and to the stars we return.
Banner, don't you find it interesting that in this fairly extensive subthread with many above-average analytical posts, which have all dealt with a complex and important topic using well reasoned arguments both for and against, that your first post was the only one that screamed the emotive word "RAPE", and that your second one said it again and followed up by accusing someone of being a 13-year old with rape fantasies?
I would guess that discussion with you is pointless, as your label appears to be self-descriptive.
The real world is nothing like how it's portrayed at school, you'll see. But you'll get nowhere until you manage to extend your thought processes beyond 4-letter words and emotive attacks.
1 Hetero man 1 Homo man 1 Lesbian 1 Pedo teacher woman 1 Retired granny That way, nothing will happen. At least, if they don't get lost in space.
Maybe I'm just applying real life experince to a situation that all of you are talking about without any real experience.
You all seem to think that group sex in a closed dynamic environment with the kind of people who become astronauts won't be an issue.
You're rather bizzarely naive. (as well as cowardly for being anonymous).
Remember that astronaut just a few months ago who tried to kidnap and murder a rival? You all seem to have conveniently forgotten that little incident.
Send an all male crew and a female escort or two.
Nearly all C-sections are lawyer-induced. Juries tend to believe that naturally born imperfect babies would always have been perfect if delivered by C-section, so that's what we get.
Of course, astronauts would need to be ready for common surgery in any case. Zero-gravity surgery has already been done, without any major problems.
Leftovers go with the rest of the bodily waste... or you can do like almost all mammals do: chow down!
We've already tested pregnant rats in space. The babies were fine. This should be unsurprising, as the unborn sort of float around anyway. If you worry that rats aren't the same as humans then, well, there's only one way to get human data!
Pretty much nobody has a sterile environment for birth. Did you believe the green or blue sheet at a hospital suddenly makes the woman all sterile and eliminates the multiply-resistant pathogens from the hospital air? Few places have a greater variety of exotic disease organsims than a hospital does.
Special food is automatically provided. Please, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast if you doubt this. Small jars of "baby food" (mostly cornstarch and water) are entirely unnecessary. Normal babies don't cry much as long as they stay near their mother; a sling (full wrap style when in zero-G) solves this problem. I'll grant that diaper cleaning could be trouble, but it's not unsolvable.
Throw them out the airlock -- with a tether. Let them float along with you, frozen solid, until you either figure out something worthwhile to do with the body, or encounter atmosphere. If you are worried about a chunk of dirty ice flapping around outside like a tetherball, then lash the body to the outside of the ship.
You toss a deader out of a lifeboat because it's a hazard to those still alive. If you can reasonably conclude that the body is not a hazard, you pretty much stash it out of the way -- for example, if you know rescue crews are on the way, you would likely just tolerate the dead body on board. You don't drag a body behind a lifeboat because it attracts sharks, squid, and other hungry sea creatures, but last I checked there are not many sharks or squid in space. Extra mass means greater fuel consumption to achieve the same acceleration, but you'd think the mission would be planned around the assumption that the crew would all make it. Dead or alive, that mass has already been accounted for.
Mal-2
Obligatory Key Inclusion: Remember the Alam09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Please don't forget that during their first months, babies can't stand themselves when subjected to 1G. Zero-G environment thus brings the opportunity to learn early how to explore the 3D world (note, not an ordinary 2D floor that normal babies explore) and accelerates the brain development. As for immunity, vaccinations are already a requirement.
But inside every pencil is an inanimate carbon rod and I'm sure we all know what a vital resource that can be in space travel.
PS: I am fully cogniscent that accounts of NASA's profligate spending on microgravity-enabled ballpoint pens are widely disputed and most probably false - however, the widespread recognition of the abovementioned meme facilitated the employment of a comedic device known as a "double entendre" in which apparently innocent phrases quoted in a suitable context become amenable to an alternative interpretation of a sexual, or otherwise taboo, nature, to humourous effect. Also, for the further avoidance of doubt, I do not have reliable evidence for the insinuation that Russian cosmonauts make improper use of writing implements or, indeed, that said implements can be satisfactorally used for auto-erotic purposes. Finally, I believe that the assertion that all Slashdot readers are celebate, if not virgin, is unjustified and that many have, in fact, experienced sexual relations - sometimes even with other people.
I apologise profusely for neglecting to negate whatever modest humour my original posting may have possessed by introducing the above caveats at an earlier stage in proceedings.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Serious astronauts embarking on expensive historical missions will be willing to undergo sterilization.
Sterilization doesn't affect libido to any major degree, in either sex. Castration usually does reduce it drastically, but not entirely. However, mutilation is hardly the answer if one is concerned with keeping healthy people healthy.
It's odd how so many people treat sex as if it were a problem. In itself, it's not.
In a group of people specifically trained to understand their sexuality and to deal with it sanely, it doesn't have to be a problem, but a simple matter of their bodies working as nature intended.
A better form of your statement would be the following: Serious astronauts embarking on expensive historical missions will be willing to undergo reorientation. It is certainly one possible view that sexuality is entirely natural and healthy and that most problems in that area are caused by society's old taboos. Those taboos certainly were not developed to work in a tiny community of interdependent humans isolated in deep space, and it's worth noting that not everyone has them, even in the deeply inhibited US.
Under that interpretation, training and reorientation (if needed) to understand and eliminate the cultural negativity often associated with sex on Earth would seem to be a viable approach to dealing with a natural body function in the utterly different and foreign setting of distant outer space.
Subs are still not gender integrated, so there's no hanky-panky going on there (at least no straight hanky-panky). Surface ships, though, have a version of this situation going on - there's a relatively small crew (FFG's have a notional manning of about 190 people), mixed gender, and are at sea for months at a time. The answer is pretty much what you'd expect... even though sex at sea is strictly verboten, it's pretty routine for rendezvous to go on in various out of the way places like fanrooms. The Navy, unlike NASA, has not thought through this issue at all. They throw these kids together in a cramped environment for months on end, and the guidance regarding sex is "just say no". It's crazy.
It seems to me that all of the issues (sex, crime, death, etc.), in addition to other unexpected occurances, will need to be dealt with by the crew only. The crew is like a small independent community, once they are in space they will be the final arbiters of morality. The worst case would be for two members of the crew to compete for control.
So, the "solution" to all of these issues is to set up an isolated situation on earth for the proposed crew to live in for a couple of years before the mission so that they have already worked out their relationships. The isolation has to be set up as close to the space environment as possible (same size environment, no early exits, etc) with no external judgments on their behavior (no external law or morality enforcement). Any behavioral difficulties need to be mediated and worked out solely by the crews themselves. After the time period is up a crew that has become a stable working unit is moved directly into a launching ship with no contact outside of the group (to maintain the existing dynamics). There will need to be contact with mission control, but that contact should be purely on the logistics of the mission, not on the moral/ethical/legal aspects of the crews behavior. JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
Thinking about those problems means that some time in the future they expect to have missions that last years ? Who knows what will have happened to the human species by then ? I think it is so far into the future they are just fooling themselves they they should be thinking about it now. By the time they advance that far they will be taking extra people along to perform tasks that would just be wasteful for astronauts to be doing.
We can't all be heroes - somebody has to stand and clap as they go by.
Seriously. I dont know where people get the idea that some people think that sex is bad. Most people think that adultery is bad, but sex itself isn't.
Libertas in infinitum
It's a simple solution. Don't send women and ensure each male astronaut has a "bunk sock" that can be cleaned once a week or so. It works for the Navy!
Libertas in infinitum