The Next Frontier: Space Sex?

You may have heard a lot of news about missions to Mars this week, as Mars One, a not-for-profit organization with the goal of establishing a permanent

Image Credit: Source

colony on the red planet, announced they have moved into the third round of crew selection. More than 200,000 people applied to be one of the first people to take a one-way trip to Mars, and Mars One has managed to whittle those applicants down to 100. They will further narrow down the search in successive rounds, finally selecting a crew of 4 that will make the trek.

So why the hell is OntarioKink.com interested in this? One word. Okay. Two.

SPACE SEX.

Interestingly enough, there is a 50/50 split between male and female applicants out of the 100. Those people all have a LOT of thinking to do as the time passes and the countdown timer reaches ‘T plus’ (the T countdown method measures mission time, with anything below blastoff being recorded as ‘T minus ____’).

So what kind of things do the candidates need to weigh in their minds before embarking on the 225,300,000 kilometer journey?

Well, aside from being crammed on a high-tech sardine can for seven months with only three other people (‘Yeah, can you stop doing that annoying thing you do?’), you also won’t be able to take along any beer or pop to help you relax (it won’t be able to withstand the pressure), or be able to have sex to pass the time.

Believe it or not, sex in space has always been discouraged by NASA and other space agencies, and the Mars One program seems to be concerned as well.

A few years back (1989 to be exact), a document began circulating on an early internet newsgroup, appearing to be a directive use space flight STS-75 to examine the effects of sex in zero gravity in order to study the plausibility of reproducing outside of Earth’s atmosphere with the eventual goal of establishing colonies on other celestial bodies. The document explained the actions supposedly taken by a pair of astronauts, including the sex positions they explored and the findings from each experiment:

1) An elastic belt around the waist of the two partners. The partners faced each other in the standard or missionary posture.

Entry was difficult and once it was achieved, it was difficult to maintain. With the belt worn around the hips, entry was easy, but it was difficult to obtain the necessary thrusting motion; as a result, this approach was not satisfactory.

2) Elastic belts around the thighs of the two partners. The female’s buttocks were against the groin of the male, with her back against his chest.

An interesting experiment, but ultimately unsatisfactory because of the difficulty of obtaining the necessary thrusting motion.

3) An elastic belt binding the thighs of the female to the waist of the male. The female’s buttocks were against the male’s groin, while her knees straddled his chest.

Of the approaches tried with an elastic belt, this was by far the most satisfactory. Entry was difficult, but after the female discovered how to lock her toes over the male’s thighs, it was found that she could obtain the necessary thrusting motions. The male found that his role was unusually passive but pleasant.

One problem both partners noticed with all three elastic belt solutions was that they reminded the partners of practices sometimes associated with bondage, a subject that neither found particularly appealing. For couples who enjoy such associations, however, and especially for those who routinely enjoy female superior relations, this solution should be recommended.  – excerpt from an article circulated in a newsgroup claiming to be NASA document 14-307-1792

Unfortunately (thankfully?!), the document was just a humorous hoax, proven by the fact that STS-75 did not blast off until 1996. There were also rumours in 1992 when the Space Shuttle Endeavour was launched with married astronauts Mark C. Lee and Jan Davis on board, but they couple and their crewmates have always denied any hanky panky took place.

It’s still unclear what effects gravity changes, loud noises, intense vibrations, disrupted circadian rhythms, and increased stress levels would have on a human embryo in zero gravity.

The closest we’ve come to studying reproduction in space has been experiments with rodents (imagine them in those cute little astronaut helmets). One study examined mouse embryo fertilization in a microgravity environment (gravity weaker than that found on Earth), and found that fertilization rates dropped under those conditions.  Another study found that rats that were raised in microgravity lacked the ability to right themselves. At the time of this writing, no mice or rats have properly developed while in microgravity throughout the entire developmental cycle.

WHAT IF HUMANS DO HAVE SEX IN SPACE?

Strangely enough, a special suit called the 2suit has been designed by writer,

Photo: Vanna Bonta and her husband test out the 2suit in a moment of weightlessness

actor, and inventor Vanna Bonta in an effort to facilitate sex in space. It’s basically two flight suits that can be worn alone, or joined to another for the purpose of intimacy or sex in space. It is comprised of Velcro strips, zippers and light-weight sheer materials, which together form one roomy suit that forces the bodies to remain pressed close together in a weightless or microgravity environment. Seems pretty sexy, doesn’t it?

Aside from the weird contraptions that have been thought up to facilitate the act of space sex, the fact remains that astronauts will be discouraged from engaging in sex simply because it complicates the mission by adding additional logistics that would need to be worked out, and because there is no room on the flight for medical devices that might be needed to assist in a birth either in flight, or once they reach Mars.

No doubt, one day there will be further experiments regarding the effects of space sex and reproduction in various levels of gravity, but in the meantime astronauts will have to find other ways to relax and release!