At the May meeting of The Atlantic's expert council, an associate professor at George Washington University stressed that sex in space would be a "real problem" for astronauts. Before sending people on a space journey, they must be sure that their body will withstand space flight and long stay in space. At the session of the thematic section "Preparing the body and mind" expert Chris Lehnhardt said that the most important issue that needs to be addressed in long space travel is the possibility of sex in space.
“If we really want to go there and stay there, there is one key moment and that is having children,” he said. "If we want to become a space species and live in space, we need to solve this key problem, which has not yet been studied."
Lehnhardt noted that people who can grow up on Mars "will be very different from us," and such an opportunity "could be a kind of turning point in human history."
Before considering the possibility of reproduction and further development of the human race, it is necessary to solve one key problem: how to successfully copulate in space. Experts told Glamor reporters about the possibility of having sex in space.
“Since successful intercourse requires gravity to maintain proper body alignment and genital contact, the absence of gravity is a new challenge,” says Obstetrics and Gynecology Specialist Kirin Dunston. "In addition, successful intercourse requires thrusting movements that will elicit unusual responses in women as a result of being constantly thrown away from their partner during intercourse, making it difficult."
According to Ph. D., physicist and astronomer John Millis of Anderson University, sex in space is more difficult because the participants will work without gravity. In space, the blood flowing through the vessels is more evenly distributed throughout the body, which makes it difficult for the necessary blood flow to the genitals. Both male and female arousal is accompanied by blood flow to the genitals, so achieving the condition necessary for successful intercourse can be difficult.
Despite the difficulties of successful intercourse in space, once the job is done, pregnancy is possible. The sperm, which was nine months on the International Space Station, was able to fertilize female rats. According to a study published in April 2017 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the rats gave birth to normal offspring.
However, high levels of radiation in space can kill the fetus. Weak gravity can interfere with fetal bone development or cause an ectopic pregnancy, putting the lives of pregnant women at risk. All of these problems need to be addressed before humans can produce offspring in space.
Sergey Lukavsky