Has anyone ever had sex in space?

Posted by Joshua Holland at 5:35 AM on February 8, 2007.

Recently, an EX of mine lamented that I always write about things that are "heavy" and "complex." So I thought I'd change it up with some meaningless fluff I caught over at Slate. Enjoy, but don't get used to it.

Christopher Beam, noting that Astronaut Lisa Nowak said that she had had "more than a working relationship, but less than a romantic relationship" with colleague Bill Oefelein, asks: "Wait, did they ever get it on in space?"

The answer's no -- they never flew together -- but apparently "speculation" about the exstence of a hundreds-of-miles-high club has been "rampant." (Think about how much energy all those rabid Seven of Nine fans alone must devote to the question.)

If astronauts have had space sex, it would have been very difficult. First off, there isn't much privacy up there. A regular shuttle is about as big as a 737, and the two main areas--the crew cabin and middeck--are each the size of a small office. The bathroom is little more than a seat with a curtain, and there aren't any closed rooms where two people could retreat. The space station, on the other hand, has a little more room to operate. The three-person crew generally splits up for sleeping time: Two of them bed down in a pair of tiny crew cabins at one end of the station, and the third might jump in a sleeping bag at the other end, almost 200 feet away. (The panel-and-strap design of a space bed might not be that conducive to lovemaking.) …

The first married couple went to space in 1991, when training-camp sweethearts Jan Davis and Mark Lee served together on a mission. NASA normally has a policy against letting married couples fly together, not because they're afraid they'll have sex, but because it might hurt the team dynamic. However, they made an exception for Davis and Lee since the couple got married so close to launch time. (In this photo, taken during the mission, Lee has his arm around Davis.) Both have refused to answer questions about the nature of their relationship during the mission.

Fresh, spankin' newlyweds? Refused to answer questions? Oh, they're in the club. A "seat with a curtain" is plenty.

In the 1990s, rumors circulated about unorthodox coziness between Elena Kondakova and Valery Polyakov on a mission to the space station Mir, especially after a video got out showing Valery playfully splashing water on Elena during the flight. […]

Which raises the question: Would space sex be any good? Recent research suggests it would not. For one thing, zero gravity can induce nausea--a less-than-promising sign for would-be lovers. Astronauts also perspire a lot in flight, meaning sex without gravity would likely be hot, wet, and surrounded by small droplets of sweat. In addition, people normally experience lower blood pressure in space, which means reduced blood flow, which means … well, you know what that means.

Seriously, the whole magilla around Lisa Nowak is not the type of thing I generally weigh in on, but, since I'm here, I tend to agree with TRex.

Tagged as: sex, space, nowak, fluff

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.