On Trip to Mars, NASA Must Rethink Death – physorg.com: When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew? Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight?
With NASA planning to land on Mars 30 years from now, and with the recent discovery of the most “Earth-like” planet ever seen outside the solar system, the space agency has begun to ponder some of the thorny practical and ethical questions posed by deep space exploration.
One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?
Sex is not mentioned in the document and has long been almost a taboo topic at NASA. Williams said the question of sex in space is not a matter of crew health but a behavioral issue that will have to be taken up by others at NASA.
What? no hot, zero G, sex in space?
Sex in zero-g sounds great. But wait a minute.
Sex, as we know it, requires gravity for leverage.
Sex in zero-g becomes bondage.
Duh! They’ll use bungee cords.
#1 – You say that like its a bad thing…
Death=Eject
Sexual urges: Duh! They’ll use bungee cords.
Yeah, don’t forget to take your sex bungee with you.
I think the diapers will get in the way.
How many Sci-Fi authors can you name who have already written about this topic. Heinlein comes to mind (although rated only PG).
They should wrap the dead body with sandwich wrap and toss it into space, hopefully the crew of CSI:Andromeda will find out who killed it.
#8 Actually Ben Bova comes to mind…
Love Boat…
#1,
Science Fiction has belabored Zero-Gee SexTM to death, but let me point out several good things about ZGS:
I’d give it a try.
Actually, IMVHO, you’d have to be really, really naive to believe there hasn’t yet been sex in space. I mean, just think. Right now (or at least until a few days ago) there were two guys and a woman couped up in the ISS for MONTHS. Am I really supposed to think there’s been no sex? AT ALL? What, are you going to tell me astronauts are assexual beings? I’m not throwing stones here, but as a friend of mine once said – put a man and a woman – any man and any woman – on a desert island and they’ll have a relationship.
I think it’s irresponsible for NASA not to study this important issue. Why? Imagine a crew composed of a few healthy young male astronauts and a few healthy female astronauts. For 3 years inside a spacecraft bound for Mars. Now, they’re not asexual, I would suppose, so it’s bound to be some tensions building among the crew, especially if some rivalry appears. Would NASA want to deal with murder in space?
Astronauts are just plain folks like us, and they can go nuts just like us – just watch Lisa Nowak, and no silly jokes, please. Put them in an extreme situation – a small spacecraft for 3 years must qualify as extreme – and some may do crazy stuff…
Dr. Who just dumps them off in a parallel universe, (Rose)
or on a street corner in the wrong town, (Sarah Jane)
If astronauts could only regenerate…
I think the real question is will anyone care? No one gives a **** about NASA, the space program is dead and has been since the late 70s. There only purpose today is to look into low earth orbiting data research. The days of a mission to the moon or Mars are simply over. They are not capable of doing so with the budget they will be getting and no one is going to be foolish enough to allocate anymore resources to them.
They are best when they work on designing new materials and the benefits are drug research. Stop the talk about spending individuals to Mars and beyond until you actually have a plan that has been expanded beyond what was written in novels fifty years ago by people who are not even alive today.
Just send a married couple. Then sex in space won’t be an issue 🙂
protein?
“put a man and a woman – any man and any woman – on a desert island and they’ll have a relationship.”
Elton John & Ellen DeGeneris?
John Amaechi & Martina Navratilova?
Sgt. Eric Alva & Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer?
Relationship, sure, but probably not sex!
What if a woman gets pregnant during the voyage? If they send a woman along, then they will need to make sure that there is access to plenty of effective birth control.
Sex in space… Haa!
there’s NO space on a spaceship…
Death in Space: That’s why they invented soylent green.
30 YEARS???
And on 2029, a close astoroid will pass between earth and moon???
6 years later IF the gravity of earth BOTHERED that astoroid, it will Burrow its way INTO the Earth…
any projections on what will happen to Florida IF the thing hits within 1000 miles or ANYWHERE in the atlantic and Gulf regions???
21, ECA, more on Apophis here:
http://www.space.com/news/051103_asteroid_apophis.html
IF…BIG IF…
We are to have a collision…
60% chance of a water hit…
And object thats 600-800 ft in size WILL cause damage..
The WAVE in a water hit will destroy ALOT of the Land on the pacific or atlantic side… I would think, we are looking at a wave In the 100 foot range..
(I would LOVe to have a sat Picture of that)
If this thing hits LAND, it would cause a Planet quake.
and I REALLY dont think we want to KNOW about those. Or that 100 miles of Earth would be TOTALLY wiped out, and probably ALOT more. and the Quake itself would make a 9 on the rictor scale look like a WIMP for at LEASt 1000 miles.. this would NOT be a focused Event… I wouldnt even know how to judge the effect on other areas, around the world. except to say…that I would rather see 1/2 the volcanoes erupt on the planet, in the same year for all the DUST and fires and distuction it would cause.
Still its something like a 1/1000 chance. Until we get abit more info on this asteroid…
#15, I actually agree that most likely NASA won’t be able to get people on the Moon by 2020, never mind Mars by 2030… NASA is in dire need of a major overhaul. I don’t mean killing NASA, but possibly dividing it into several smaller agencies
NASA A – Manned space exploration – ISS, Moon and, one day, Mars.
NASA B – Unmanned space exploration – the successors all the great science missions of the past few years – Spirit and Opportunity, Cassini, Galileo, New Horizons, etc.
NASA C – Aircraft research.
The solution for NASA A isn’t killing the shuttle by 2010 and getting the ‘Orion’ ship up. The shuttle cannot be killed by 2010 if the ISS is to be completed, as promised by your ‘president’ Bush. I’d bed 2012 or thereabouts.
And the next step should be forward – a better, more advanced, reusable ship, instead of a 40 years old design. Space access must be cheap, instead of being forever expensive, which is how NASA A is going right now.
#19 Pregnancy tests are actually possible on the ISS, I wonder why? 🙂
Just check out http://www.spaceref.com/iss/medical/4041.pregnancy.pdf
It’s part of a ‘Routine and Emergency Medical Operations’ manual for the ISS, available at http://www.spaceref.com/iss/medical.ops.html
#20 There’s quite some space on the ISS. Enough for some ‘privacy’.