Fark headline: Virgin turns down $1,000,000 for out-of-this-world sex

The British firm that plans to launch tourists into space from Spaceport America has turned down a $1 million offer to shoot a sex video in space.

Space.com reported on its site Thursday that Virgin Galactic declined the offer to film sex scenes while the participants are floating in zero gravity. Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn told the Web site that the offer from an unidentified party "was $1 million, up front, for a sex-in-space movie. That was money we had to refuse, I'm afraid."

Virgin Galactic plans to base its operations at Spaceport America, a state-built facility planned for southern Sierra County, north of Las Cruces. When it opens in 2010, Virgin Galactic will charge $200,000 per passenger for two-hour sub-orbital flights aboard its SpaceShipTwo vehicle. - lcsun

Space begins 62 miles up. The MIR space station is 150 miles up. Slate's Christopher Beam discusses the possibility that  Astronauts have had sex in space:

Former and current astronauts don't like to talk about space-shuttle sex, and NASA says that if it's ever happened, the agency doesn't know anything about it. (NASA has never conducted official experiments on animal reproduction in space, says a spokesman.)

If astronauts have had space sex, it would have been very difficult. First off, there isn't much privacy up there. A regular shuttle is about as big as a 737, and the two main areas—the crew cabin and middeck—are each the size of a small office. The bathroom is little more than a seat with a curtain, and there aren't any closed rooms where two people could retreat. The space station, on the other hand, has a little more room to operate. The three-person crew generally splits up for sleeping time: Two of them bed down in a pair of tiny crew cabins at one end of the station, and the third might jump in a sleeping bag at the other end, almost 200 feet away. (The panel-and-strap design of a space bed might not be that conducive to lovemaking.) Astronauts also have a demanding work schedule, leaving them with little time or energy for messing around. Space-station crews do get time off on weekends, though, when they can watch movies, read books, play games, "and generally have a good time."  - slate