Sex In Space: The True Final Frontier

At an Atlantic Live panel in May, an assistant professor at George Washington University emphasized that sex in space should be a “real concern” for astronauts.

Before astronauts are allowed to travel to space, they must to ensure their bodies can handle space travel and long-term space occupation. In a segment of the panel titled, “Preparing the Body and Mind,” Kris Lehnhardt said the most important issue to address in long-term space occupation is the dynamic of having sex in space.

Read: When Are Humans Going To Mars? NASA Official Says Red Planet Is ‘Primary Mission’

“If we actually want to go places and stay there, there’s a key component and that’s having babies,” he said. “If we want to become a spacefaring species and live in space permanently, this is a crucial issue we need to address that has not been studied yet.”

Lehnhardt said people who might grow up on Mars “are going to be vastly different from what we are,” but that the possibility “may be kind of a turning point in human history.”

Before reproducing and maintaining the human race is considered, one key component must be addressed: How to successfully copulate in space. Experts spoke to Glamour Magazine about the details of having sex in space.

“Because successful coitus for humans relies on gravity to achieve correct alignment and maintain contact with the participants’ genitals, its absence will pose a novel problem,” said OB-GYN Kyrin Dunston, M.D. “In addition, the thrusting motions required for successful coitus will present unique reaction in the female, where she will be propelled away from her partner during coitus, making the act very difficult.”

According to Dr. John Millis, Ph.D., a physicist and astronomer at Anderson University, sex in space becomes further complicated because participants will be working against gravity. In space, the flow of blood is more evenly distributed throughout the body, making it more difficult for blood to reach the genitals. Both male and female arousal relies on blood flow to the genitals, so reaching the necessary state for human bodies to successfully copulate could be difficult.

Despite the difficulties faced for successful coitus in space, once the deed is done, pregnancy is still possible. Sperm that spent nine months in the International Space Station was able to impregnate rats. The rats gave birth to normal offspring, according to a study published in April 2017 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

However, high radiation levels present in space could damage the fetus. Low levels of gravity could hinder bone development in the fetus and cause ectopic pregnancies, endangering pregnant women’s lives. Before humans can healthily reproduce in space, these factors must be addressed.

Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have both spoken on the possibility of colonizing Mars in the near future.

Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, previously announced his plans to try and beat NASA to Mars. Musk planned to send a robotic mission to Mars in 2020 and if all goes well, a crewed mission in 2024, eclipsing NASA’s plans to send humans to Mars in the 2030s. In a paper he published in the scientific journal New Space, Musk discussed the logistics of his plan to form a self-sustaining city on Mars.

“History is going to bifurcate along two directions. One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some sort of eventual extinction event,” Musk said, according to the Deccan Chronicle.

Hawking expressed similar sentiments at the Starmus Science Festival in Trondheim, Norway. He claimed it is only a matter of time before Earth is destroyed by one of several factors, including overpopulation or an asteroid strike.

Read: Mission To Mars: Will NASA Or SpaceX And Elon Musk Get There First?

“I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth. The earth is becoming too small for us,” he said. “When we have reached a similar crisis in our history, there has usually been somewhere else to colonize. We are running out of space and the only places to go are other worlds.”

If Musk and Hawking's want to move forward with their plans, they need to make like Salt-N-Pepa and talk about sex.