Although it’s likely to require some seriously deep pockets, commercial space tourism is rapidly headed towards becoming a reality.
And seeing as how human beings have knocked boots virtually everywhere else they’ve ever been, that means space will soon join the mile high club as one of the most exclusive arenas to have sex in.
But what would sex be like in zero gravity? Gizmodo interviewed some real astronauts on the subject and their answers might have you second guessing the idea of a weightless romp.
Mark Shelhamer, a former chief scientist at NASA’s Human Research Program, says the primary issue would be privacy, as in there wouldn’t be very much of it.
“If SpaceX sends two people to the moon, it’s likely that there would be a third ‘professional’ astronaut with them,” he told Gizmodo about SpaceX’s plan to send two wealthy tourists into space in 2018. “Apollo spacecraft were very ‘cozy’ and I can’t imagine something that would be ready as early as next year would be very large.”
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Unveiled late last month, the SpaceX Dragon Version 2 is the space capsule engineered to taxi tourists into space. And with its extremely tight quarters (it holds seven passengers at most), finding a place to sneak off and get busy would be no easy task.
If by chance someone would, the effects of motion sickness, which they say is inevitable in zero gravity, would also dampen things. But John Millis, chair of the department of physical sciences and engineering at Anderson University, says that’s a peripheral issue compared to what microgravity does to a man’s erection.
Simply put, getting a hard on in space could be the biggest issue.
“Due to the microgravity environment, the way that blood flows through the body changes,” Millis explained. “Here on Earth our blood pools more in our lower extremities, while the heart must work much harder to get blood to our brains. In space, blood doesn’t pool in a particular part of our body in the same way.”
Meaning, less blood is available to flow to the area of the body responsible for an erection. So there you have it. As sexy as the idea of a space romp might be, boning in space as things are right now isn’t very sexy.
Of course, a lot of the same things were probably said about airplanes and those tiny, little bathrooms. And we all know how that turned out.