I was about to comment on a friends blog which required me to find an old notepad file, but instead i found this: A little research pad i'd started into the more intimate details of space.
So I've finished it off and published it, just for you. During my research i discovered this
documentary, which you may enjoy if you take an interest in this stuff. Bear in mind it's one of those overdramatic and slightly patronisingly narrated documentaries though.
As you know i like to add links to articles where i heard about stuff, and i have more links i could add, but i actually can't be bothered right now. I will aim to do it tomorrow. That and get round to commenting on that blog.
What do breasts go like in space? Do girls still have to wear bras?According to the documentary, breasts appear larger in zero gravity. Also women do not need to wear bras, as you'd expect. Breasts also seem to float into a more natural spherical/ dome like shape (and yes i have arrived at that conclusion from studying footage of female astronauts). Girls would probably choose to wear a bra if they're going to be filmed though, in case the nipples show through, or maybe not, if she's shameless like that.
What about willies? What do they go like? Can you still, y'know, get em up?One of the effects of zero gravity is the even distribution of blood around the body. On earth, blood is drawn away from the head and towards the feet, and the heart pumps hard to force it into body extremities. In zero G, the blood fills everywhere evenly.. meaning more than usual in the penis. This results in astronauts being very prone to erections or having mild erections a lot, and it's supposed to be quite easy to get a proper boner. One astronaut even complained this gave him a lot of pain in the mornings.
Would zero-G affect orgasm in any way?I haven't found any information on this. You'd have to consider things like muscle atrophy might mean spasms are not as strong, and you'd have to be careful to not accidentally knock yourself around too much of course, but i havent found any proper information on it.
Have people had sex in space yet?Given that you've got 3-6 intelligent adults, usually including at least one woman, in a small, enclosed space, isolated from the rest of humanity for 6 months, it's pretty hard to imagine sex has never happened. There have been rumours that astronauts and cosmonauts have got it on, but both american and russian agencies deny these claims.
Nasa, being a largely conservative organisation, still seems to consider the subject a big taboo and apparently no astronaut has ever had sex on a mission, and those questioned by the press have
denied it. Nasa doesn't officially prohibit sex but seems to discourage it- All activity is logged and american space modules/ shuttles don't allow for much privacy, so it all looks pretty unlikely. Russians, despite being more laidback and seeming to have closer bonded teams, actually
forbid sex because of the complications that can arise.
Of course whether anyone ever has got away with on the sly is unknown, and will probably never be officially confirmed.
What do you think sex in space is like?Apparently the act of sex in space is more difficult than on earth, basically because things fly around and can be pushed away very easily, and sex requires intimacy and everything. Personally i can think of a few solutions to this, namely using velcro walls, handles, straps, sleeping bags etc, but you know the americans.. everything's gotta be a big performance. One woman invented a '
2suit', suits that can be worn by people and then attach to each other so you can stay close. It seemed to
work but was somewhat a hassle. I dunno, the story of the american million dollar zero-g pen and the russian pencil comes to mind really. Still, i haven't tried it so i don't know.
Cumming in space has got to be messy though. Apparently water droplets will fly all over the station (water is filtered out of the air so this is ok) but you can imagine how unpleasant that might be for other crew members if it were cum.
Can it go wrong?According to Will Whitehouse of Virgin Galactic, "you can break a penis" if you're not careful.
You've been warned.
Do.. females still menstruate in Zero G?Despite fantasies about colonising space, Nasa was apparently too scared take women because of concerns that menstruation in zero-G might be dangerous. It was imagined they might get 'backflow', or blood that won't leave the body. When they did send a woman into space, they had her take drugs to stop the cycle.. So for a long time, this was a scary question no one had the guts to answer.
Luckily, it turns out the whole thing isn't a problem at all. Firstly, gravity is not required, muscles do most of the work anyway, so 'backflow' was actually a mythical problem that never existed. Secondly, a tampon acts as a wick and helps to draw out the blood. So there you go, the female system maintains it's full functionality in space.
..What about on the moon and beyond?This comes from the traditional belief that women's cycles are linked to lunar phases. (The word menstruation actually derives from 'mensis', latin for month, which itself derives from 'mene', greek for moon.) If an organism's system is regulated by something, and that influence is removed- say if they go
stand on that something- what happens to it? Does it stop, adjust to a new influence, or carry on as usual anyway?
No human females have left the influence of the moon so no one knows for sure. Actually, its unconfirmed if the moon
does regulate womens cycles or if it's all just a coincidence. Many organic systems are linked to lunar phases, either by its tidal effect or its nocturnal light levels, so it's a reasonable theory.. that said i can personally vouch that its not unusual for cycles to have absolutely no synchronisation to the moon whatsoever, and actually women with regular 29.5 day cycles are not in the majority..
Can humans reproduce in space?It's complicated..
So far no one knows how well humans can reproduce, but we can make guesses based on what we know so far. Various attempts have been made
breeding various organisms in space, but it's dodgy. Even plants cannot reproduce reliably- they are prone to abnormalities. The only animals to have reproduced fully (from mating to birth) successfully are fish. Pretty much all Other animals have had problems at some point in the process.
Scientists are working on whittling down exactly which point it is that fails. Fertilisation seems to go well in frogs and mice, but not so well in other animals like sea urchins. Pregnant rats have been sent into space and given birth in zero gravity and produced healthy baby rats, so birth is no issue either. In a mouse breeding
experiment, problems occured in embryonic development. Generally the more complex an organism, the more can go wrong, so there may be a lot of problems for humans to consider. In short: The success of reproduction may depend on whether humans can find a solution for that development stage.
As well as zero/ micro-gravity, theres issues such as radiation and the general nature of space life- toxic chemical exposure, the composition of the artificial atmosphere, and all that kinda thing. Nasa has a
policy to disqualify pregnant astronauts (i think this means 'bring home' and possibly 'fire'?) on the grounds of these kinds of medical issues. Also, remember 9 months is a long time.. i think longer than any astronaut or cosmonaut has done in one session.
Whats it like if you die in space?No one has died in space. All space-related deaths have been during launch, re entry, or tests on the ground. Still, if you're curious, there's more than one way to theoretically die in space. If you want to explore some of them,
there's a game for that.
By the way, whats the difference between Astronauts and Cosmonauts?Nationality. Astronauts are american (though the term can be used generally), and cosmonauts are russian. Taikonauts are chinese, and indian astronauts will be vyomanauts. There's others like spationauts (french) and i'm sure the list goes on, but i can't be bothered to go through every country's native word for 'space' and stick 'naut' on the end. You get the picture.