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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.
"How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
Celibate space monks!
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Two, only send people who do not cling to the outdated notion of monogamy and who are also bi-sexual (or at least bi-curious).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
That's it: you've hit upon an even better solution right in your proposal. The key to maintaining relationships in space is ... this inanimate carbon rod!
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.
Ahh the million mile high club!
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
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
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.
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
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.
Is it me, or is asking /. for advice on sex like asking a fish for advice on traversing a desert?...
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Not many fish are going to have spent half their life watching videos of deserts...
This article details some of the complications that the physics of zero gravity might bring.
The article doesn't cover oral, where bodily fluids are...well...disposed of.....if you're extremely lucky.
BBH
Why not on the long trips, send out crews of only gay men?
"Houston, this is Mars One. We have landed, and let me tell you, Mars is FABULOUS!!!"
No, if they want no pregnancy or infidelity causing conflict, they should send people who really believe in family values. Yeah, that's it, send Republicans.
Hundreds of 'em.
Just load 'em into the space ships and launch them off to Centaurus. Or somewhere. Anywhere.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
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).