With all the (unmarried?) women going up on the Shuttle, I'd be surprised if an attempt hasn't been made at zero-g coitus, maybe even as a controlled NASA experiment.

Seriously: would zero-g permit a man to reach a rapid enough rate of intro & extromission sufficient to result in an orgasm in the orgasm center in the brain enough to spark off an ejaculation?

It's been speculated in science fiction before. The trouble with true free-fall sex is that each motion causes you and your partner to move apart. Thus, the only realistic method would be two folks in a "sleeping bag" or otherwise restrained against each other.

Aside from that, there's the hazards of bodily fluids going off on their own, where they can pose hazards for the unsuspecting couple (don't want to breathe in fluid) or nearby electronics.

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Avatar courtesy of Bunny.

you have to strap yourselves together with bungee cords.

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Eagle Eye Observatory

Only 34 views in twenty minutes? This is a higher-minded board than I thought.

Not me, though.

The Saint...do the words family oriented board mean anything to you??

Sheese...

A careful discussion of this topic would be appropriate, barely, for this board. I think the OP is over that line, however. The Saint, care to edit it a bit? If that picture is hotlinked to a site you don't own, remove it. That's a very big violation of the FAQ.

Maybe a shaft with big fans at one end and some kind of webbing downwind would do. The moving air would keep them together on the webbing and remove fluids from the shaft which would be filtered out of the air before recirculation. It might waste too much power, though, but that shouldn't bother rich tourists.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

The old saying goes, where there's a will, there's a way.

In other words, stupid question.

If there is one thing in all of animal kind that has been proven time and again, there is a will. Lots of it.

The Russians say it´s forbidden.

http://www.space.com/news/cosmonauts_sex_010601.html

As for NASA, a reference from the book "Spacefaring - The Human Dimension"

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9028/9028.ch11.html

I don´t know about the Chinese.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

Ask Mark C. Lee, Payload Commander, and
N. Jan Davis, Mission Specialist, of STS-47.

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Sure, they're married. But how much private space is there, really?Some of us have evolved "arms" and "legs"

All,
"Family Board"

If you know what 'coitus' is, why should you be prevented from reading about it? If you don't, it means nothing. Though it might lead to some questions that the people who want to censor it will have difficulty answering.

John

The shuttle astronauts are highly trained specialists in their respective fields, not "guests" at a playboy after dark party. :roll:

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

But are they humans?

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

are guests at playboy after dark?

and how do you know?

The physiology involved is quite complex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgasm

Have any papers, even theoretica, been written as to the effects of zero G on whether it heightens or dampens it?

The physiology involved is quite complex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgasm

Have any papers, even theoretical, been written as to the effects of zero G on whether it heightens, dampens or even extends its duration?

I remember Isaac Asimov had written an essay about this very topic. While trying to find a copy I came across this site. The author has a PG rating on the page, but the article seems fairly tame. There are references for those who want to pursue the matter further.

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"A mystic is a person who is puzzled before the obvious but who understands the nonexistent." -- Elbert Hubbard

Yes...they are also professional scientists and researchers who have trained for years for the opportunity to go into space and do a job. Space is their "workplace". I know there are those who think that the workplace is an appropriate "hunting ground" for the sort of thing this thread is addressing...but I don't think that the astronauts would be that unprofessional.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

And we're only talking about two week flights for the most part, not six-to-ten years. I would like to think that astronauts are steady enough to keep from jumping everything in sight for a couple of weeks.

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With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

"Both the pleasures and problems of zero-gravity sex have been greatly exaggerated"

Arthur C. Clarke

What if someone got pregnant?

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when it stops, it's just beginning

sun comes up, we laugh and we cry
sun goes down, and then we all die

Touched by his noodly appendage

I have heard some speculation that it may be impossible to achieve pregnancy in space. That is to say, while sex, orgasm, and conception are almost certainly possible, there are certain key events in embryo formation that require a gravitational field to occur sucessfully. Anyone know anything more authoritative on this?

I don't think anyone's suggesting that astronauts are anything less than totally dedicated professionals, and I really don't think anyone's suggesting that shuttle/space station crews are carrying on like a bunch of horny teens up there. But the concept of sex in space is an intriguing issue- given that sex is one of the most important elements of human life, and given that most scientists hope that humans are going to live in space one day, I'd be surprised if the thought of conducting such unofficial experiments hadn't occurred to any astronauts. To be honest, given the number of men and women that have gone into space, I'd be very surprised if it hadn't happened already. If I were an astronaut, I'd probably try and (carefully) broach the subject with an unattached female colleagues- all in the name of science, of course.

As for pregnancy, I seem to recall Helen Sharman talking about pregnancy experiments in tadpoles conducted on Mir, which had fairly horrific results- I recall stories of tadpole embryos with two spines, and other sorts of catastrophic growth defects, which seems to imply that pregnancy in microgravity is not desirable. In Larry Niven's known space stories, female belt miners had to be confined to Sanctuary asteroid (which had one G of artificial gravity) for their pregnancy and first year of the infant's life- either Niven predicted this sort of thing, or experiments with animal growth in freefall have been going on for some time.

yeah, they are professsionals.
but they are also human professionals- and they do get "time off" while up there. i know on the space station, they get entire "free days"- think weekend- to do whatever they want.
what was the crew of the shuttle doing during that last day they were up there? they were supposed to already be home, and everything was already done and put away. does NASA have things for crews to do while "stranded" like that- or is it just kind of a bonus day in space for the crew? a time like that would be good for -uh- "experimentation", wouldn't you think?

This is pure speculation on my part:

I believe NASA privately (read secretly) "sanctioned" both time and cabin space for Lee and Davis to try. I believe the rest of the crew probably huddled up in the command compartment, giving the couple a modicum of privacy in the sleeping area, below. The couple were huddled tightly in a sleeping bag so they tried.

I won't speculate on whether they were successful, or not.

I also believe that there is a confidential de-brief of their experience to be used by future couples that venture into space. Furthermore, if there isn't a written de-brief, then I'm convinced the Lee and Davis would privately brief any future couples that want to try.

IMO It just doesn't make sense that they wouldn't have tried, or that certain medical professionals in (or working for) NASA wouldn't want certain questions answered for future space travellers. If it was planned as a medical experiment, the cost could be justified.

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Yes, it seems unlikely that anyone would deliberately do the experiment with human pregnancy in microgravity, but if humans expand into space, it's surely bound to happen accidentally some day.

I remember Niven's idea. It's been long speculated, though unproven, that 'detection' of the local gravitational axis may be important in embryological development for quite a while - so I suspect that Niven took his cue from those ideas. Can't remember why the Belters had to send all mothers-to-be to Ceres though, wouldn't rotational gravity do just as well - you only have to provide 0.04G, shouldn't be too hard. And, of course, the big unanswered question is whether that is enough - how much gravity do you need?

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Fin
Skep-ti-cult® member #488-28303-790

Erm... is a "coitu" anything like a pig?

The OP was far more descriptive than just using the word "coitus." And, as far as family goes, many families would prefer to explain the subject to their kids on their own terms.

Also, keep in mind that the first response of most kids nowadays to a word they don't know is to pop it into Google.

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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Mark Twain

Avatar courtesy of Bunny.

How much privacy did they require? They were the first married couple in space, not the first to couple inside a sleeping bag while others were in the same "tent".

Heck, I've done that and it wasn't even in the name of science.

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No argument there. tlbs101's scenario was speculation, though.

Probably, the more we speculate, the closer the thread is to being locked.