Despite the unsuccessful first launch for Elon Musk’s Starship, experts still believe that space tourism is about to go mainstream, with more and more people signing up for a once-in-a-lifetime holiday in orbit.
There’ll be no sea and little sunshine on these trip, but some bold vacationers could try to fit in some sex.
However, a new report warns that space sex could be a danger that the space tourism industry isn’t prepared for.
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As long ago as 2005, space tourism operator Space Adventures announced a potential “honeymoon in space” for two tourists in a cramped Russian Soyuz capsule on the way to International Space Station.
So far, no-one has signed up for an orbital honeymoon but Professor David Cullen says it’s inevitable that some thrill-seekers will try to join the “hundred mile high” club.
Professor Cullen, lead author on the new report, says it’s not entirely clear if anyone has actually had sex in space yet.
“If you go on to the internet,” he says, “you can find all kinds of speculation. But in terms of definitive sources, there are none”.
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Professor Cullen, of Cranfield University, says: “It is unrealistic to assume that all space tourism participants will abstain from sexual activities while exposed to microgravity and increased levels of ionising radiation during spaceflight”.
“This raises the possibility of uncontrolled human conception in space, which poses a significant risk to the emerging space tourism sector.”
Very little research has so far been done on how space travel might affect human reproduction.
“We just don’t know whether there will be major negative effects or not,” Professor Cullen said.
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The unique high-radiation environment of outer space could introduce unpredictable and potentially mutations into individual sperm as they develop.
It takes 74 days for sperm can be produced in a man’s testicles – meaning that there could be complications not just while a holidaymaker is in orbit but for up to two months afterwards.
"If you look at the list of organs sensitive to radiation damage, the gonads, the ovaries and testes, are always in the top two or three," says Joseph Tash, a professor at the University of Kansas Medical Centre, who has conducted extensive research on the topic of animal reproduction in space.
Even if space tourism remains too expensive – and too cramped – for couples to enjoy honeymoons in orbit, researchers from Concordia University in Canada, have said that as space missions become longer and more ambitious, NASA and other space agencies will need to come up with some kind of policy about sex in space.
“Love and sex are central to human life,” Concordia University wrote.
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“Despite this," the researchers added, "national and private space organisations are moving forward with long-term missions to the International Space Station, the moon and Mars without any concrete research and plans to address human eroticism in space”.
Similarly, Michael Collins – the third man on NASA’s pioneering Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, wrote that on the long and dangerous missions to Mars, a crew made up of married couple might have the resilience to cope with the arduous conditions of the journey: “An element of stability, of old-shoe comfort, would be introduced by having one’s husband or wife to fall back on,” he said.
“Certainly a singles-bar atmosphere, a charged mixture of sexually unattached competitors, would be a disaster.”
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