US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programmes on how human beings might survive years in orbit, according to a book published yesterday.
Pierre Kohler, a respected French scientific writer, says in The Final Mission: Mir, The Human Adventure that the subject is taboo both at Nasa and at mission control in Moscow, but that cosmic couplings have taken place.
"The issue of sex in space is a serious one," he says. "The experiments carried out so far relate to missions planned for married couples on the future International Space Station, the successor to Mir. Scientists need to know how far sexual relations are possible without gravity."
He cites a confidential Nasa report on a space shuttle mission in 1996. A project codenamed STS-XX was to explore sexual positions possible in a weightless atmosphere.
Twenty positions were tested by computer simulation to obtain the best 10, he says. "Two guinea pigs then tested them in real zero-gravity conditions. The results were videotaped but are considered so sensitive that even Nasa was only given a censored version."
Only four positions were found possible without "mechanical assistance". The other six needed a special elastic belt and inflatable tunnel, like an open-ended sleeping bag.
Mr Kohler says: "One of the principal findings was that the classic so-called missionary position, which is so easy on earth when gravity pushes one downwards, is simply not possible."
via Astronauts test sex in space - but did the earth move? | Science | The Guardian.
Makes sense. If we find another inhabitable planet we may need to spend many years, even many generations traveling to it.
4 comments:
Better be sure they are married, before you guys start transporting sin 2 space. D one on earth is enough.
Is zero gravity a cure for the female headache?
Wherever humans go they'll take their "sins" and everything else associated with them. It's unavoidable. But, it's even worse than this. When only Americans or Europeans go to another location on Earth they even have to take their environment with them!
Well, it's set up for them when they arrive to their destination a la tourist accommodations and hotels etc. They don't go out into the "bush" usually but only for brief spells. And, they nearly always return to their environmental refuge where they're safe.
And, it's the same thing in space, but in a more real way as in the environment of space stations.
But, one thing humans always avoid and almost never give any attention to but always immediately dispose of is their waste. Everywhere they go they leave a trail of waste, organic and inorganic. As long ago as the Austrolopithecines, the proto-humans, they left piles of junk, "middens," they're called, archeological treasures. Now, in space we have tons (tons!) of waste orbiting earth. Humans are one strange organism.
And people wonder why "aliens" haven't contacted humans.
Don't all organisms leave their waste behind?
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