San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
Back in 2000, a small article appeared in the U.K. Guardian about how astronauts, as part of U.S. and Russian research programs designed to help understand human survival in long-term orbit, had been fornicating in space.
Only it never happened. A book by French science writer Pierre Kohler cited an internet hoax as fact, and the Guardian reported it forward—even though it contained hilarious Onion-esque details. My favorite was the claim that NASA had used guinea pigs (the little critters, not the human astronauts) to test multiple sexual positions in zero-gravity conditions.
“The results were videotaped but are considered so sensitive that even NASA was only given a censored version,” Kohler wrote, quoted by the Guardian.
Not only didn’t the Guardian question the veracity of NASA getting guinea pigs to pull off a reverse cowgirl, they apparently didn’t even attempt to get hold of the videotape. Despite the story’s absurdity and NASA’s immediate denial of its validity, it wasn’t until eight years later, when the story got rediscovered and distributed virally, that the Guardian learned it was phony. And it was only last week that it added an update to the story on its website, explaining that it never happened.
Is this yet another example of Presently Tense marveling at the laughable quality of modern information dissemination?
Of course, but it’s not the main point. What this story demonstrates is how the very un-private nature of the astronaut experience (kids are watching!), coupled with our belief in their right to private time up there, has left the phenomenon of outer-space intercourse shrouded in mystery.
Consider the headline of perhaps the most popular story on the subject, “Do Astronauts Have Sex?”—written in 2007 by Christopher Beam for Slate.com. Beam’s work is thorough but inconclusive.
He points out that a space shuttle’s cramped and not-so-private quarters make intimacy unlikely but not impossible. The international Space Station, however, has more room and private sleeping areas. The three-person crew in the NASA wing of the station split up at bedtime, with two of them retiring to little cabins at one end and the third sleeping at the other, about 200 feet away. Although the astronaut work schedule is demanding, they do get off on weekends. Er, I mean, they get weekends off.
Over on the Russian side of the station, quarters are more spacious and attitudes are a little looser—they’ve even brought vodka up there, according to the blog EnglishRussia. Well, looks like the U.S. may have already lost the sex-in-space race. But the Russians aren’t talking about it any more than the Americans are.
There has been rampant speculation that astronauts Mark C. Lee and Jan Davis, who were secretly married just before their 1992 shuttle mission, may have gotten busy in the stratosphere, but when they returned from their mission, they refused to comment on whether they’d done it. NASA has since imposed a rule against married couples in space.
“Sex is frowned upon as a subject of discussion around here,” NASA engineer Ken Jencks told Spin, after he got in some hot water for speculating, in a NASA biomedical research guide back in the mid-1990s, on the effects of zero gravity on sexual functioning.
But Jencks’ focus was on reproduction. And his story shows how the reluctance of NASA to “go there” has pitted consideration of the astronauts’ privacy and dignity against the usefulness of the missions for scientific research.
UC Davis professor and NASA consultant Lynn Wiley told Spin that she attended a NASA meeting where it was decided that to protect the astronauts’ privacy, NASA would not collect their sperm to study the effects of galactic cosmic rays and such on human reproduction.
That study could’ve been part of a whole range of useful research on space sexuality. All they’d need is for astronauts to sign up. NASA should also lift the ban on married couples working together in space. I’m sure the space program would receive a huge boost in funding if the public knew they were supporting sexytime in the space station.
Slate’s Beam argues that space sex probably wouldn’t be any good. Zero gravity tends to induce nausea—and vomiting is generally not considered hot. But not all astronauts vomit, and most get over it. Also, Beam says, astronauts sweat a lot on missions, so “sex without gravity would likely be hot, wet and surrounded by small droplets of sweat.” And that’s bad why, exactly?
Beam also speculates that the lower blood pressure of zero gravity means reduced blood flow, a perhaps cruel blow to the space boner. But Dr. James Barada, a member of the American Urological Association’s Guidelines Panel for Erectile Dysfunction disagrees. Barada told Spin, “Even with the decreased blood flow, I don’t see microgravity having a negative impact on erectile functioning.” Moreover, microgravity adds potential new dimensions to sex: “You could spin your partner like a propeller.”
It’s time we admit that being candid and proactive about zero-gravity sexuality is necessary for research on human survival in space. And that we all want to see that propeller thing.
Write to dak@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.
