Video: No sex in space?

  1. Transcript of: No sex in space?

    OLBERMANN: Abstaining from sex in space is nothing new. Just ask the 14 billion-year-old Virgo . For that matter, any of the 335 astronauts NASA has sent into space, except for two of them. In our number one story, leading scientists agree that colonization of space is essential to the long-term survival of our species. Yesterday, a NASA space shuttle commander revealed that astronauts on his shuttle are prohibited from knocking anti-gravity boots. On April 5th , the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida . On board, three women and four men, led by Commander Allen Poindexter . Their mission is a 13-day tour at the International Space Station . Yesterday, more than two months after returning safely to Earth , the crew of Discovery was on a media tour in Tokyo when Poindexter was asked a hypothetical question about coitus among the stars. According to the " Agence France Press ," Poindexter was quite serious, responding, quote, "we are a group of professionals. We treat each other with respect. And we have a great working relationship. Personal relationships are not an issue. We don`t have them and we won`t." As far as an official policy regarding sex in space , NASA as an organization doesn`t appear to explicitly prohibit it. As we stipulated before, at some point reproduction in micro gravity is going to have to happen. Our future kind of depends on it. Luckily, our friends at the History Channel already took the trouble to explore the pitfalls of sex in space and how to work around them.

    UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One thing everyone does agree upon is that one or more of the mating partners needs to be restrained.

    UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you could have is some hand holds and perhaps leg holds, similar -- made out of bar kind of material, similar to the hand holds you have to assist you in the bathtub.

    UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any mechanism that would simulate constraints on motion, that would at all mimic gravity, would probably facilitate mating in space. It could be Velcro .

    UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And one of the parties could wrap legs around something and then perhaps foot holds similar to the kind of thing you put your feet in in water skis, to secure the bottom.

    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For sex in space , I think you might want a seat belt.

    OLBERMANN: Well, we should perhaps be talking to Isabella Rossellini for a demonstration, but who gets to follow that? No, a scientist. Derrick Pitts , the chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia , who is probably regretting that choice right now. Good evening, Derrick .

    DERRIC PITTS, FRANKLIN INSTITUTE CHIEF ASTRONOMER: Thank you, Keith . I`ll try to keep a straight face.

    OLBERMANN: That`s one of us. If it`s going to take several years to get to Mars , are those people just out of luck?

    PITTS: No, I don`t think they are because, you know, it`s such a long trip, this is one of those things that`s going to have to come out of a relationship of people traveling together. They are going to have to figure out what to do with their sexual urges, and I`m betting that something interesting is going to happen on that trip.

    OLBERMANN: But isn`t there already a report that supposedly that -- it was never really answered whether the couple on the Shuttle , that fell in love in the lead-up period to the launch and got engaged just before they took off, so to speak, that they never really denied that perhaps the marriage began in a physical sense somewhere in sub-orbital space?

    PITTS: Yes, you`re right. They essentially refused to answer that question, saying it was nobody`s business and we really didn`t need to get into that, because of their level of professionalism. I really doubt that anything has happened in any of the American space program missions. And partly the reason is that, you know, if you`re an astronaut, you really do not want to jeopardize your future chances for returning to space, so you`re going to do everything you`re told, and you`re not going to do anything that you shouldn`t be doing.

    OLBERMANN: Well, but that begs the question, doesn`t it, that on some of these three-year trips, that you might be instructed to procreate on the way to Mars . What if you don`t want to?

    PITTS: I think they`ll figure out how to set up the pairings. I think maybe they`ll do a little space computer dating system, you know, to figure out who`s going to be an astronaut and who isn`t. It`s just an extra box you check, Keith , that tells you what happens.


    PITTS: You got it, there you go.

    OLBERMANN: We showed a little of the History Channel , which actually did a special about this. And they had some great ideas for how to get it done. Is, in fact, the space station big enough where there would be any privacy anywhere?

    PITTS: The space station is a really good size, and there are plenty of nooks and crannies where people could sort of get themselves away in a corner and have a little fun. So there`s plenty of room. And when you take a look around the various components, you find out that, you know, the Russian areas are a little bit more -- have a little bit more privacy in some of their spaces. But I think those kinds of spaces and those kinds of opportunities are going to continue to develop and present themselves.

    OLBERMANN: You just hit the nut of the point here. Is there a space sex race and did we lose it to the Russians?

    PITTS: You know, I don`t think anybody is going to tell us whether that has happened or not. I think we have to just look at the faces of the cosmonauts and see if they`re smiling or not. That might give us some hint as to what happened.

    OLBERMANN: Whether it`s a cosmonaut or an astronaut, is there downtime enough to have done this on your own at some point?

    PITTS: Actually, Keith , that`s a very good point. You know, this is such an expensive endeavor that the ground controllers absolutely schedule every last second of time they possibly can to get the most efficiency out of this, out of the work that`s being done. And so there really isn`t very much time. Although astronauts always do have some personal time and, you know, let`s -- We should just mention that where there`s a will, there`s a way. If there`s time, somebody can get to it.

    OLBERMANN: Derrick Pitts of the Franklin Institute , who`s our champion tonight for getting through this in one piece, great thanks.

    PITTS: Thank you, sir.

updated 10/1/2011 8:30:52 PM ET 2011-10-02T00:30:52

Building a spaceship to visit another star is hard enough, but keeping the humans onboard alive for the ride may be even harder, space experts said Friday at a symposium dedicated to interstellar travel.

A trip to even one of the closest stars would take decades and possibly hundreds of years, likely spanning multiple generations. But scientists aren't even sure humans can procreate safely in the microgravity of space.

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"It is still unknown, if you want kids and you want reproduction, what gravity has to do with successful development," MIT researcher Dan Buckland said here at the 100-Year Starship Symposium, a conference sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to discuss technologies and strategies needed for planning a mission to another star. [Gallery: Visions of Future Human Spaceflight]

So far, humans haven't managed to send a probe beyond even our own solar system, let alone to the nearest star, 4 light-years away. A light-year, the distance light travels in a single year, is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). 

"The distances to the stars at vast," said biologist Athena Andreadis of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "Large starships will have to be self-sustainable. We don't have such technology yet."

Unless scientists can invent a practical method of simulating gravity on a spacecraft, an interstellar journey would be spent in weightlessness. Over time, microgravity ravages the body, decreasing blood volume, atrophying muscles, diminishing bone mineral content and impairing vision.

Sex in space and other worries
The effects on a developing fetus would likely be even more severe, perhaps disrupting normal embryonic development and even neurological functioning. A baby's body and bones may develop differently in weightlessness.

And then there's birth to think about.

"Giving birth in zero gravity is going to be hell because gravity helps you" on the ground, Andreadis told "You rely on the weight of the baby."

And that's if would-be parents can even get that far.

"Sex is very difficult in zero gravity, apparently, because you have no traction and you keep bumping against the walls," Andreadis said. "Think about it: You have no friction, you have no resistance."

Ultimately, even if human babies can successfully be conceived and born in space, multigenerational space travel comes with a host of other difficulties. In addition to the ill effects of microgravity on the body, people on such a journey could fall prey to disease, and the psychological effects of being stuck onboard a vehicle in the vacuum of space could take their toll.

"Something will come up that we simply haven't thought about," Andreadis said. "We have to be prepared for casualties."

Getting there is only half the challenge
And arriving at the destination — another star, hopefully one with a habitable planet that humans can colonize — doesn't end the difficulties.

Even habitable planets are unlikely to be identical to Earth, so we will likely have to build an Earthlike biosphere within a dome to live in, or terraform the planet completely. Besides the ethical questions of whether it's right to make radical alterations on another world, and potentially eradicate any microbial life on it, terraforming is a complex technological endeavor. [The Top 10 Star Trek Technologies]

"Not only are we bad at terraforming, but we don’t have the life span or the attention span to carry it through," Andreadis said. "Terraforming is a failure of the imagination. It's like people who take those expensive trips to Paris and eat at McDonald's."

A better option may be to use genetic engineering to help people withstand their newfound environment. Of course, that is quite complicated, too, and could create a second species of humans so different from those back on Earth that the two groups wouldn't even be able to interbreed if they were reunited.

"We will have to grow up and do self-directed evolution, realizing that what comes out of the other end may not be 'human,'" Andreadis said. "If we stake our future among the stars, we must change for the journey and the destination."


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