Sex, the final frontier: NASA acts to ensure that astronauts don't follow their urges
And all these years, I thought they solved the problem the old-fashioned way. I just LOVE technology, don't you??
In the First World War, frontline troops who were away from their loved ones for long periods famously had bromide put into their tea to reduce the distraction of their sexual drive. But yesterday it was suggested that such measures might be taken a lot further - to Mars, in fact.
Dr Rachel Armstrong, speaking yesterday at a British Interplanetary Society symposium on the Human Future and Space, said the US space agency Nasa was considering how to deal with the natural urges of astronauts travelling on long journeys such as a three-year trip to Mars, where the six-strong crew would be likely to include two women.
"Nasa is talking about the chemical sterilisation of astronauts on longer journeys," Dr Armstrong said....
Nasa was nonplussed by the suggestion yesterday. "I haven't heard anything about that," said a spokesman at Nasa's Johnson Space Centre....
But that denial may hide a reluctance, in a nation where the showing of a nipple on national television provokes a religious outcry, to discuss the rather delicate subject of sex in space.
Hmm...four men and two women on an extended space flight? It does sort of sound like a plot for a bad porn film, doesn't it?? Hey, I think I may have just figured out how NASA can make a few extra bucks. Budget cuts? Hell, who's worried about budget cuts??
