Question, do you know the answer?

[BigBen]

Hey everybody, how's it going, blah blah blah, Mod's feel free to move this, blah blah blah.


Here is my question: Do you think that anyone has had sexual intercourse in space?

I was talking to a buddy, and he replied "What the fuck gets in your head sometimes?"

But I am genuinely curious; I first thought HELL YES, because there are male and female astronauts. And I am not ruling out A Brokeback Shuttle moment here, either! First, you would always be able to say you had SEX IN SPACE! Secondly, some of those female astronauts look pretty hot...

But I question my rationale:

1. These folks are Uber-professional. They are certainly past the whole College-prank bullshit.
2. They are on camera, and under microphones and shit. The ground control folks would certainly know. That probably isn't a huge turn-on.
3. Every part of their day is filled with a schedule. They sleep in shifts.
4. They probably think of each other as brothers and sisters, due to the years of training they endure. That can't be good to spark the ol' flame.

So, what do you guys think? Is there evidence around this? Is there studies and stuff? What does your gut tell you?

[nezmot]

I guess no - believe it or not, but there are people outside (and even inside) the TFP who have other things to do/think about than bumping uglies all the time. Especially whilst hurtling around the planet at astronomical speeds, while simultaneously performing experiments, spacecraft maintenance and generally trying not to explode. My guess is: no. Reason: Other things to do.

[Supple Cow]

I don't know what I should think, but I've never thought of this before. I really hope someone has.

[Willravel]

If no one has done it, then I'll step up to the plate.

[Windbreaker]

great question and like you I always have weird ass questions pop into my head. My guess is YES.. why? For a experiment. Why not? I'm sure nasa wants to know if zero gravity has any adverse effects on procreation. It's vital shit to know for future human space civilizations I would think.

[krwlz]

I garauntee there are male astonauts who have tried... Wether or not they have found a female astronaut willing is entirely another storey.

[Gatorade Frost]

I've always wondered this myself.

Don't forget the Russians and the MIR and all. If they had female cosmonauts they may have.

Otherwise, I don't really know. It's a good question.

[maleficent]

Sex in Space Forbidden, Says Russian Cosmonaut

By Interfax

posted: 09:36 am ET
01 June 2001

MOSCOW, June 1 (Interfax) -- Cosmonauts claim that it is forbidden to have sex in space.

"A lot of different commissions -- moral, ethical and medical ones -- that were discussing this, finally ruled that one must not do it so far, because the consequences are unknown for those who would be born," Cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev said in an interview published in the Friday edition of Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Musabayev also gave a negative answer when asked whether anybody has ever had sex in space. "Definitely not, although there is a lot of idle talk around this," he said.

"We laugh, because we just have no opportunity for this, and the Americans are a very disciplined people," he said.

Touching on other issues, he compared the wages of Russian and foreign astronauts. Musabayev noted that during his second mission, he was the captain, while a flight engineer was a foreigner. "He was paid 31 times more than I, his commander," he noted.

Russian cosmonauts are paid so-called "flight allowances" -- $300 per day, which is taxed. In addition, there are different wage rates for spacewalks, which depend on the time of working outside the spacecraft. There are also different coefficients -- for instance, performing a manual docking earns twice as much pay as supervising an automatic one, Musabayev said.

Sex That's Out of This World

by Michelle Delio Michelle Delio
02:00 AM Nov, 04, 2000 EST

Reader's advisory: Wired News has been unable to confirm some sources for a number of stories written by this author. If you have any information about sources cited in this article, please send an e-mail to sourceinfo[AT]wired.com.

Getting amorous while in orbit is a fantasy for some, and a serious question for those with a scientific thirst to know if having sex in zero-gravity conditions would be fabulous or fraught with technical difficulties.

Both desires are fed in the upcoming issue of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly, which features an article that explores the history of sex in the United States and Russian space programs.


It contains tasty tidbits about past plans to film a sex documentary on board the Mir Space Station, allegations of adultery by two Russian cosmonauts and specifics of the pornographic videos that were viewed during space missions.

To write "The Psychological and Social Effects of Isolation on Earth and in Space," Peter Pesavento interviewed scientists, psychologists, astronauts and cosmonauts for an in-depth and personal piece which lays bare the mysteries of how humans handle themselves –- and, sometimes, others -– during extended space missions.

Acknowledging that outer-space sex is a rather racy topic for an academic journal, Quest's editor, Prof. Stephen Johnson of the University of North Dakota, said the article broke new ground in discussing the social and psychological issues of space flight from a historical and human perspective.

"Sexuality and gender relations are just one of several topics that the author addresses, all of which have been issues in human space flight in the past, and will be again in the future," Johnson said.

Pesavento focused his article on what he says is "the largest challenge of long-term space flights": the need to have people return from their missions in acceptable emotional and physical health.

In the piece, Pesavento points out the should-be-obvious fact that "if humans are sexual beings on the ground, they also will be sexual beings in space." It's a concept that NASA, publicly at least, allegedly chooses to ignore.

According to Pesavento, NASA thinks that sex is just a very small part of a more important issue: the lack of any physical connection with loved ones when astronauts are in orbit.

Quest editor Scott Sacknoff added that he believes that since sex in the United States is often a very controversial subject, NASA public relations people simply steer clear of releasing any information about what sorts of extracurricular activities might be happening up there.

"They could open up a can of worms if they had to publicize their official policies for astronaut relations," Sacknoff said.

"I personally cannot picture NASA supporting efforts to film a movie on the International Space Station where a sex scene takes place, such as that which (Pesavento's) article mentions was proposed for Mir."

Consequently there is very little information available about NASA astronauts' more amorous activities while in orbit.

In the book Living in Space, former NASA consultant G. Harry Stine, who died in 1997 shortly after his book was published, said that the neutral buoyancy tank that's used for astronaut training at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, was also used, both officially and unofficially, to see whether people could shag sans gravitational pull.

According to Stine, it was "possible but difficult." Stine also explained that the tank experiments revealed that sex in zero gravity would be easier if a helpful astronaut was available to assist the copulating couple by holding one of the two participants in place.

French astronomer Pierre Kohler, in his 1996 book The Final Mission, alleged that astronauts conducted NASA-sponsored sexual research on a space-shuttle mission in 1996.

Kohler's graphic descriptions of experiments that involved elastic belts and inflatable tubes were hotly denied by NASA and were later found to have originated with a parody piece that had been widely distributed on various Internet news groups and websites. The Final Mission is now out of print.

Pesavento said that the Russians have a more open attitude towards sex in space, noting that the Institute of Biomedical Problems, a leading Russian research institute in the field of space medicine and biology, has been involved for decades in sex-related studies of living creatures in space.

The Quest article offers other salacious snippets of information for the, uh, scientifically curious -- including astronaut Alan Bean's comment that an all-male crew is a good way to prevent jealousy, something he believes could be a problem with a mixed crew where not everyone was "participating."

"If some are doing it, you are going to want to. Hey, that fella’s got a big smile on his face, and that bugs me," Bean said.

Pesavento also laid some free-floating scraps of space sex gossip to rest, such as the widespread story that cosmonauts Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov and Yelena Vladimirovna Kondakova were the first to explore the highly personal potentials of zero gravity together.

And, since both are married to others, they were also accused of being the first deep-space adulterers.

The story was covered in numerous newspapers, mostly in Europe, during Polyakov and Kondakova's 1995 mission. Pesavento said that Polyakov later denied that he'd had anything more than a professional relationship with Kondakova.

But evidently Polyakov believed that substitutes for the real thing are not a good idea either. He particularly eschewed the use of the sort of inflatable friends that you can purchase in an adult bookstore.

The trouble with such toys, Polyakov was quoted in Quest as saying, is that "anyone who is using such things may develop the so-called 'doll syndrome,' or in other words, may start preferring the doll (to their own spouse or loved one) even after (they return to Earth). People have a sad experience of using such things during long-lasting stays in Antarctica and sea voyages."

I'd like to beleive that the cosmonauts defied the rules and actually did knock boots... The thought of Neil armstrong and Buzz Aldrin getting it on together disturbs me a little bit..

[Crack]

I think I remember a story about a husband/wife Cosmonauts in the mir, pretty sure they did...

[Ace_O_Spades]

If not already, the era of Space-Tourism is upon us... so you can imagine if it hasn't happened already under the strict military-regimented role of astronauts today, it can't be too far into the future that people will be having sex in space.

[Topper]

I'm also putting my money on the Russians having done it.

Just don't see it happening within the NASA culture... probably not with the Chinese when they start regular space missions either.. (wonder how long till they would even send a women into space...)

[stevie667]

So you mean all those porn flicks i watched wern't filmed in space at all?

[Sultana]

Originally Posted by stevie667

So you mean all those porn flicks i watched wern't filmed in space at all?

"All those"? Just how many space-porn flicks have you watched?!?

[Topper]

*resists urge to google "space" and "porn" from work*

[stevie667]

Originally Posted by Sultana

"All those"? Just how many space-porn flicks have you watched?!?

Apparently none

[analog]

well didn't they film a porno in the Vomit Comet, the huge plane that can dip so fast you are weightless for like 30 seconds at a time? It's the plane they used to film Apollo 13.

I thought I heard that they had.

[Sultana]

Originally Posted by analog

well didn't they film a porno in the Vomit Comet, the huge plane that can dip so fast you are weightless for like 30 seconds at a time? It's the plane they used to film Apollo 13.

I thought I heard that they had.

I seriously doubt that, it's owned by NASA, and they have no sense of humor about stuff like that.
I used to work (as a contractor) for NASA Dryden. WooHoo!

[Zeraph]

Originally Posted by crackprogram

I think I remember a story about a husband/wife Cosmonauts in the mir, pretty sure they did...

Me too, I remember something like that a couple years ago. Might have been on fark, which means it could have been fake.

[Poppinjay]

As Analog's icon shows, gravity is your friend when it comes to sex.

[sadistikdreams]

Originally Posted by stevie667

So you mean all those porn flicks i watched wern't filmed in space at all?

Neither was the moon landing.

[Fremen]

They don't call it 'Tang for nothing...

[ratbastid]

Originally Posted by analog

well didn't they film a porno in the Vomit Comet, the huge plane that can dip so fast you are weightless for like 30 seconds at a time? It's the plane they used to film Apollo 13.

I thought I heard that they had.

You remember right, my friend.

Private Video, a European porn company, produced The Uranus Experiment in 1999, which featured scenes shot in part in the Vomit Comet. The video featured porn's first (and still only) zero-z money shot.

The flight wasn't cheap--the film's budget was estimated at $750k, which is one whole hell of a lot for a porn feature. But evidently the Comet is available for private charter, and they don't seem to care what you do in it.

I won't disturb you with the details of how I know all this, because it would. Disturb you.

[rockogre]

It wouldn't suprise me to find that the government sanctioned a tryst or two while connected to all the medical equipment. They don't share everything they know with us and I'm sure they would see this as bad publicity.

And as far as being past college type pranks, these are extremely fit people living on the hairy edge of danger a good part of the time. Is there a better aphrodiasiac than survival under extreme conditions?

[BadNick]

Russians like to experiment beyond the norm, so I'd guess that the first time they had one of each sex up there they did it. Based on my limited understanding of their culture, I would think a homosexual laison was much less likely.

[Pacifier]

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Private Video, a European porn company, produced The Uranus Experiment in 1999, which featured scenes shot in part in the Vomit Comet.

more about it:
http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/...nt_000516.html

[JStrider]

I invision a room with all walls padded with little cloth loops sticking out that are good for grabbing with hands or sticking your feet into to help hold you in one direction, maybe some longer loops on one side so you can have your feet in one loops and be holding onto loops on the opposite side, or maybe just make the room 7ishx7ishx7ish so most people could reach across it

[fresnelly]

It's a shame that Stanley Kubrick isn't around to film this sort of thing.

[Redlemon]

Heh, I'm rereading Spider Robinson's "Stardancer" trilogy right now, and zero-gee sex is a big element of that. By his understanding, it essentially requires a 4-limbed hug. Also, there's the benefit that you still have use of your hands throughout. Due to the level of cooperation required, a rape would be nearly impossible.

Originally Posted by Sultana

"All those"? Just how many space-porn flicks have you watched?!?

Well, there's "Bimbo Cheerleaders from Outer Space", from 1988. Contains my favorite bit of dialogue:

(long pause)
Guy: Um, aren't you supposed to say something here?
Girl: I don't think so, let me check.
(girl reaches off camera, grabs script and reading glasses)
Girl: No, I guess we just fuck.

(This is, sadly, the third time I've posted this on TFP.)