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Sex in Space
Alex Farber turned us on to this story in the January 2000 issue of Scientific American about something NASA never talks about: sex in space. The article says, "Rumors of unofficial orbital couplings abound, but no one is talking." With manned (and/or womanned) Mars missions likely to take 2.5 years or more, and duty cycles on the planned International Space Station expected to be nearly six months, outer space sex is a subject even the most prudish NASA bureaucrats will not be able to avoid much longer. Face it: wouldn't you want to experiment with Zero-G lovemaking if you had a chance to do so - and you had a willing partner available whose curiosity quotient was as high as yours?
Wouldn't the... you know.. love juices go all over the place? :)
>;)
Hrm, first post?
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
I especially like this:
"...the few who don't like to think about sex, at least not officially."
How do you officially think about sex?
Doc
I can't get the image out of my head: two would-be Zero-G lovers, rotating in space to get 'aligned' correctly like the docking scene in _2001_.
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Turned out to be an interesting article about fetal development in zero-G. Not what I was hoping for, though.
With these 2.5 year trips to Mars, If there was a child concieved, would they pack some car-seats in on the spaceship?
In all seriousness, with most birth control methods being only 99% effective, the serious question of what to do if conception occurs comes up.
Abortion in space? Imagine the religeous leaders of the world... they'll flip! Even more medically intrusive procedures such as getting a vasectomy (snip snip) aren't foolproof.
It seems to me you'd need some type of handles on the floor(or whatever, it doesn't matter in space), because how do you "push" with no gravity?
So either the crew would have to jury-rig something up, or NASA would have to set up a "love-room" or something. Another interesting question(s): birth control? pregnancies? abortion? birth in space?
If there's a 2.5 year trip to Mars, I don't think it would be all that unlikely for one of the women to get pregnant and potentially have to deliver in zero-g. Of course, the delivery and raising of the child pose all new dilemas(but on the bright side, there won't be any "SIDS" in space).
At least not on a 2.5 year Mars mission. I think you'd want to be pretty damn sure that you didn't wind up pregnant on a 2.5 year space mission... in fact, I wonder if they'd require sterilization beforehand. I mean... nobody knows how well contraceptives would work in zero-gravity, and a pregnancy could be disastrous and/or tragic...
Surely they've contemplated that scenario?
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... there is an equal but opposite reaction.
In any case, I'm sure the engineer's solution to this problem wouldn't be sex at all, but a 'Net downlink with some pr0n and a little device that would prevent the compartment from getting 'sticky', if you know what I mean.
But seriously, NASA has given us so many improvements for our daily lives, I'm sure that I'll be interested in whatever they have to say about sex.
Maybe they could build a special chamber for it. Get some centrifuge action going on so you have some gravity to work with (otherwise you might have to use some rope...wait, that's not a bad idea!), build a shower system into it to clean things off when you're done...what else can we toss in there?
You do it in your office, with other officials, as a public figure, and at tax payer expense. Numerous politicians and sitting presidents come to mind.
Or you can just publicly and officially declare that you think about sex. Jimmy Carter's public confession that he considered himself an adulturer because he had adulterous thoughts in his heart must surely qualify.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I, in an effort to further the human race, do volunteer to be one of the "testees" (har) for this noble experiment. I will contribute just about any part of my body that you want in order to help with this interesting, er, thing that you are doing. Just don't tell my girlfriend. Going to Mars, or anywhere outside of Earth for that matter, is a pretty good deal, too. NASA, you can contact me at the above email address. I eagerly await your reply!
Remember the ending scene from Octopussy?
Seriously though, there was a married couple on a recent space shuttle flight. You know they had to think about it.
Hush, son, before you make yourself look like you've never had sex before. Condoms don't require gravity. Neither do hormonal shots like Deproprovera. Neither does any of them.
As for pregnancy, you take precautions, and if that doesn't work, you just pack lots of morning-after pills, and if it's too late to prevent implantation, there are other hormone regimes. Medically (chemically) induced abortion has been a reality for thousands of years. I just can't see it helping NASA funding any.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
They've already tried this.
A couple years ago a married couple went up in the space shuttle and attempted to conceive a child in orbit. She didn't get pregnant though... I guess all the spermies got confused...
...Velcro©!
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Install cameras and charge pay-per-view. That would get most of America's attention. Hell, you could pay for a lot more than 2.5 years under that funding model.
I can see the headlines now:
"Mons Veneris Explored Near Venetian Mountain"
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
NASA ANNOUNCES NEW STRATEGIC VISION
.. not because it is limp, but because it is hard!"
First Porno Made In Space Will Fetch "Billions", Says Administrator Goldin
GREENBELT, MD (UPI) - After suffering several embarassing setbacks, including the loss of the Mars Polar Lander, Climate Orbiter, and XR-2300 Space Modulator, NASA has announced that it has decided to undertake a major shift in its funding paradigm and accept large donations from the private sector. This paradigm shift comes on the heels of sweeping condemnation from several key members of Congress, who have vowed to eliminate the agency from the federal government.
With comments from the readership of Hustler magazine guiding him, NASA adminstrator Dan Goldin laid out a plan to shoot the first space-based pornographic movie. "We are confident," explained Goldin, "that space pornos can provide NASA with the funding that we need to explore the solar system and the rest of the Universe." Goldin continued: "It will make billions!"
And perhaps Goldin is right. The American Taxpayer's Union, a Congressional watchdog organization, conducted a study on the effect of having American pornography revenue pumped directly into NASA. "Our figures indicate," explained group spokesman Terry Schmidt, "that if NASA were to go ahead with this plan, we could build a colony on Mars the size of Cleveland by the year 2002."
Goldin's comments were made at the Press Briefing Room of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. His sentiments are also shared by U.S. president William Jefferson Clinton, who addressed the issue in his annual State of the Union speech before Congress.
"I believe that we as a nation should commit ourselves to achieving the following goals," said Clinton. "First; I believe it should be the goal of this nation to film a porno in space before this decade is out, and return it safely to Earth." Clinton's comments were briefly drowned out by applause. "We choose to film the first orgy in space!" vowed Clinton. "We choose to film the first orgy in space
NASA insiders confirmed that adult film stars Ron Jeremy and Christi Canyon have been signed to a three-film deal with the space agency. The first film, tentatively entitled "Hot And Heavy Weightless Love", will be shot aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in the fall of the year 2000.
"The agency that brought you microwave ovens and Tang is also going to be the agency that brings you the world's first zero-gee cumshot," beamed an ecstatic Goldin. "What a great time to be alive!"
Larry Flynt contributed to this story.
This story contained material unsuitable for children and should not have been read by any individuals under the age of 18.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
1. You'd expend all your energy just getting out of those heavy spacesuits.
2. It would be difficult to get ol' Mr. Winky in with everything all floating around and stuff...
3. Avoiding getting hit by floating debris while in the act... "Ohhh Yesssssss... OUCH!!!!! THAT $%$#%%$# CHAIR HIT MY ASS!"
4. Cleanup... EWWWWWW
5. Maintaining the position in the 0 G environment, especially tricky if you're doing it doggy style or trying kama sutra positions
6. Contraceptives (Introducing the Trojan Glow-In-The-Dark Anti-Gravity Condom... in Cherry and Chocolate flavors!)
7. What would you do if you were abducted by aliens while getting it on? Even worse, what if they wanted to join in?? I wouldn't mind if Martian chicks were hot, but if they weigh 600 pounds and have slimy acidic tentacles... *shudder*
But hey, it's probably already happened on many NASA missions already. After all floating in a small confined environment in the middle of a space gets boring and lonely, and since NASA is allowing female astronauts now... *uNF* *uNF*
Face it: wouldn't you want to experiment with Zero-G lovemaking if you had a chance to do so - and you had a willing partner available whose curiosity quotient was as high as yours?
Let's face it; that pretty much sums up all heterosexual male fantasies in this culture. Replace "Zero-G" with any other contrived situation, and you have a winner. "Wouldn't it be neat if she let me put it there...." "Wouldn't it be neat if she let us do it with that one too...." "If only I could find a partner who wants to have sex as much as I do!"
But I suppose I shouldn't expect people not to try to combine their primal drives like exploration and sex. And it is just a bit weird how America has made the great technological and cultural leap of putting convents into space, although that probably owes more to military culture than to science.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
The end of 'Moonraker' featured James Bond and Jaws getting busy with there respective partners, I just wish i could find one like jaws had, mmmm pigtails, but anyways. This led to one of the best lines in a Bond flick ever. They turn on the camera's for the space station, and M, Q, and a host of other brittish officals are watching, one of them asks "What is Bond doing". Q's responce "I believe he is attempting re-entry." A bit commical, but still on topic Duck`
I saw a show a couple years ago that touched on this subject and they even had some examples of devices that would make sex, well, possible in zero gee. One was basically made of two belts that each partner wore that were connected together with an elastic strap that would go between each side of them. I'd imagine that you'd have to keep the straps close and tight since Newton's third could end the session right quick if a strap were to come undone. :)
Deosyne
Obviously 69 gets a lot easier in zero-G. Same goes for anything that was formerly constrained to 2 dimensions. Circlejerks, for example, could go spherical.
I want to officially coin the term "Buckyfuck" to refer to a 60-person orgy. It would require a large chamber, but I'm sure a civilian space hotel might include such a facility.
And for normal sex in space: Don't worry about getting the controls sticky, just cover the panel with a tarp! Lots of velcro, some bungees, handles and toe-holds, maybe a motorized turntable... I'd pay to see the video too. SAREX would get a lot more interesting if we could hear some moaning every now and then.
The hilarious part comes when they have to document their findings in scientific form.
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus, Where the three-body problem is solved...
Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K, and the cold virus never evolved.
Home, home on Lagrange, where the space debris always collects; we've achieved, so it seems, two of man's greatest dreams...
Solar power and zero-G sex.
IUDs are already grossly ineffective and dangerous, so they really shouldn't be up for consideration. The idea of the uterus changing shape and rendering them less effective, however, is absurd.
Diaphrams aren't held in place by gravitational forces; they're held in place by normal forces produced by the surrounding muscles.
If anything, gravity opposes the flow of semen on earth -- the motion is really completely dominated by muscle contractions and osmosis, which would be equally strong in space.
As for whether medical abortion is tragic/traumatic, that depends on either your physical constitution or your political/moral views, both of which are largely unaffected by space travel, at least in ways relevant to this discussion. And in any event, military matters have a tendancy to steamroll over any such complaints. Surely it's a lot more traumatic to swallow a cyanide pill than to swallow a mifepristone pill.
;)
And no you weren't being serious, but it's more fun for me if I pretend you were.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
NASA has said they plan to have a woman on the first manned Mars mission. Just in case someone has to ask for directions.
1000 SlashDot sigs
We at Hammerhead produced the upcoming film Supernova, and there was a call in the script for a zero-g sex shot.
Well, Novespace, a French company, has a big A300 fitted as a zero-g research vehicle. Much like the KC-135 that NASA uses, but without all of those pesky governmental interferences. We called Novespace, and they were willing to let us rent the plane and film our zero-g sequences.
Before we got to the point of having to reveal exactly what these sequences would be, though, the deal was scotched. While the rental price was quite reasonable (less than 200K/day) the shooting would have to be done in France. Flying the minimal movie crew to France, putting them up for a week in a style to which we'd all like to become accustomed, and flying them back raised the price to something untenable. They couldn't fly the plane to the US because the FAA hadn't given them a US type certificate.
Now, it would be hard to have sex 30 seconds at a time; and of course it wouldn't be honest to goodness sex for our movie; but it would have been fun. It would be like nothing anybody had ever seen before.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I wouldn't be suprised if the sperm need gravity to know which way is up.
Bill - aka taniwha
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Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
...nevermind all the comments about the married couple and the various women who've been on the shuttle.
:)
Most astronauts come from the military. And the gay population in the military is far higher than in the general population.
I'd be very surprised if the first sex in space had been heterosexual
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Supposedly NASA Document 14-307-1792 has documents from a shuttle mission where tests were made. It's probably a hoax, but if it is the person had beuracrat speak down pat.
--
Cecil Adams is, of course, the world's smartest human and the author of the weelky column The Straight Dope.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Seriously, there's already a movie by the title "2001: A Sex Odyssey". Sorry. And don't ask.
:)
If we sign up for this project, do we make more than the $5 the psychology department is offering?
-Chris
Is there any data on the effects of weightlessness on ovulation and menstruation? Is gravity needed for the movement of the egg and the discharge of the lining of the uterus?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
A number of experiment have been done in SpaceLab specifically to look at the potential for developmental problems. And there are some indications that embryo development is better aided in a positive-G environment (negative-G might work as well, but vice zero-/micro-G, they're the same: acceleration in a direction; thus, +G vice micro/0G).
The physiology of motile sperm traversing the cervix and reaching the fallopian tubes for insemmination is not considered to be an issue because the sperm swim their way "up" the cervical mucous rather than engaging in a free fligth to the egg.
As for maneuvering in micro-G, most get the hang of it pretty quickly. As I indicated in an earlier post, staying "docked" might require use of aids, but the maneuvers are not that hard to master, especially if you wait 24 hrs to make sure neither party's got space motion sickness problems, and has their "space legs."
While I worked with a bunch of the crew while there, this is a topic that was really not discussed, even after a few beers... there were rumors, but nothing supportable, demonstrable, and certainly no willing witnesses to interview.
Several Spacelab missions have looked at various aspects of this. Rats were used in at least 2 experiments I am aware of (I've been gone from there a long time) and fish and frogs were also looked at. Chickens were also used.
The chicks that were early in development (last fertilized before launch) were the most severely affected. The implication is, early fetal development is potentially a +G phenomenon.
The rats were similarly affected, but not to the extent of the chicks.
The fish and amphibs were less affected, but with a slightly increased rate of mutation (extra limbs, etc.) that was never associated statistically with the experimental conditions. The investigators had no reasons to expect that sort of response attributable to development in micro-G.
This is an area where a lot of physiology must be divined, and a lot of experimental work must go on. One reason that HAS to happen is, it's gonna happen and NASA's gonna have to be prepared for the results.
I expect there remains a lot of interest in the Space Physiology arm of NASA for working on these issues at the applied and basic sciences levels.
Forget 2001: A Sex Odyssey because something like it ALREADY EXISTS!
Do a search on IMDB for "2069: A Sex Odyssey"
:)
Actually, twenty to thirty is the duration you're looking for on the Vomit Comet. The problem is that the unit is in seconds, not minutes.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
In microgravity, sperm motility *increases* and the passive movement of the egg is based upon smooth muscle contractions of the Fallopian tubes and uterine wall. Statistically, there might be a slightly greater risk of ectopic pregnancy (outside the uterus - say the Fallopian tubes) which can still kill you due to internal hemorraging, but the major concern is the radiation hazard on the developing cell mass.
Any pregnancy in space had better allow for very good radiation protection and some pretty serious diapers since (particularly male) infants can be pretty effective waste product distributors in three dimensions. As well, I wouldn't want to expose babies to high acceleration for the same reason that Shaken Baby Syndrome is potentially lethal here on Earth even with constant gravity.
Low acceleration, low radiation and good hygene should allow for good pediatric outcomes as long as development itself isn't affected by microgravity. I'd much prefer babies in non-accelerating radiation protected non-microgravity environments for now, at least until microgravity development is better understood. Moon and Martian colonies would be OK, as would any space station that provides the equivalent of at least 1/6th gravity through rotation.
But a third person is much more fun than a bungee cord!
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
If ever you have the chance to read "Exit Earth" by Martin Caidin, it has a scene dealing specifically with zero-g sex. It's by no means a literary masterpiece, so I wouldn't go read it just to find out what he wrote about zero-g sex.
That now begs for further questions. How fast would one be propelled forward if they were to "cut the cheese"? Or how much fun would it be to race in the space station while holding onto a vaccuum?
credits to my friend JES for that one...
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