Scientists say “Expedition Spouses”, Antarcticans say “Ice Wives”, the Future says “Space Wives”
Jul 12th, 2008 by Nick
from Telegraph.co.uk:
“Lust in space: Nasa must iron out the kinks in space sex if man is to settle on Mars”
Dr Jason Kring said astronauts might have to emulate polar explorers and take a colleague as a lover for the duration of their three-year mission, to minimise sexual frustration.
[...]
He believes that Nasa could learn from the operation of bases at the South Pole, where researchers who are separated from their families for months at a time take “expedition spouses” as sexual partners for the duration.
He said: “You have an exclusive relationship with them for six to nine months but when the expedition is over, so is the relationship and you return to your normal lives and families.”
He added: “The polar environment has similar characteristics of isolation and confinement to space. Most of the evidence suggests that the addition of women there has had a positive effect on these traditionally all male crews.”
The notion of sex in space is attracting growing attention.
Link (Thanks for sending this, Elizabeth.)
A long-winded-rant on your post is on my blog. I found this article pretty thought provoking. I linked to your post. http://www.amandaeve.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/
Yup. Spot on. Seen it, done it, we went our separate ways.
God knows she helped me wade through 14 months at Pole and keep my relative sanity.
Wherever she may be today, all I can say is “thanks”.
No way will NASA look into this in a serious, funded kind of way. The general American electorate dislikes “wasting” money on space exploration enough as is. It would be a very poor PR choice in this country of puritan ideals, to publicly acknowledge that humans like sex, and suicide to propose “Space Wives.”
That said, I’m all for it. Though there is the danger of “lover’s quarrels”, I know I’d work harder and keep my sanity longer if I was sacking up with a co-worker after the working day was done.
It will never get to the PR consideration stage with NASA. NASA is a primarily military conformist administered department of the US government. They will carry on with the same conformity to USAF regulations for behavior they currently use on the shuttle flights. And the military’s opinion of sex is that even masturbation (the only form of sexual activity permitted) does not exist. All forms of sexual interaction onboard military vessels underway or in the air (even between spouses) are strictly forbidden. Of course there is always the dream of civilian led space industries where the regulation of behavior can be more like the scenic South Pole “the Maui of Antarctica”…
Such a low priority.
Anyway, get off your moral high horse for a second and stop judging everyone else. The problems of radiation once you get out of the earth’s magnetic field is of much greater concern than the sexual fulfillment of crew members. If we address the radiation concerns, and have a program in the works then this is the kind of issue we could consider. As it is, it’s putting the cart about a mile in front of the horse.
And if you wonder why Americans resent the space program, has it ever occured to you that it might be partly due to this attitude of utter contempt too many of its members and supporters exhibit towards the average American who is paying for it all? Back in the 60s people in the space program gave the impression that they were proud to represent the average American. Now I get the feeling that space enthusiasts bregrudge the American people and see them as usefull idiots from which they have to try to get as much money as possible while not even trying to explain the benefits of space exploration to an ignorant populace who are so hopelessly brutish, conservative and backwards that they could never understand the purpose.
Oh, and if the brutish conservative morality of the American people is to blame for your tragic lack of funding or difficulty of securing funding, why is that Americans fund a larger space program than the European union (which has a larger GDP).
Great job though, I am a fan of NASA and think it should be better funded, but reading high horse elitism like this makes me think twice.
Also, you had better be sure any contraceptive methods used are 100% certain (which indeed none are, except for surgically induced sterility), given the horrific potential for a fetus with a partially formed skeleton or deformed brain mass. That said, I’d be fine with it if both the male and female members were surgically sterile.
Thankfully, deformed fetuses are not a result of concieving at the south pole, so I’ve no problem with anyone who wants to having sex there if they like. It’s just your attitudes that rub me the wrong way.