IT says here:
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8195
Out-of-this-world sex could jeopardise missions
17:42 21 October 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee
Sex and romantic entanglements among astronauts could derail missions
to Mars and should therefore be studied by NASA, warns a top-level
panel of US researchers.
NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon by 2018 and later on to
Mars. But a round-trip mission to the Red Planet would probably last
at least 30 months and carry six to eight people. That would be a
hotbed for intense crew relationships, says a report by the US
National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
"With the prospect of a very long-term mission, it's hard to ignore
the question of sexuality," says Lawrence Palinkas, a medical
anthropologist at the University of Southern California in Los
Angeles, an author of the report. It reviewed NASA's plans for
research to keep astronauts safe and healthy in space – but the plans
make no mention of sexual issues in spaceflight.
Palinkas says long-term space missions may be similar to extended
periods in the isolated and confined environments of Antarctic
research stations. He says crews in those stations often pair up in
"bachelor marriages" that last the length of their stay – or less. "If
there are instances of sexual conflict or infidelity, that may lead to
a breakdown in crew functioning," he told New Scientist.
Alleviating boredom
"Breakups can lead to violence and all kinds of things," agrees Carol
Rinkleib Ellison, a psychologist specialising in sexuality and
intimacy based in Oakland, California, US, who was not part of the NAS
panel. "People are very primitive in their emotions around partnering
and sex."
Sexual harassment may also endanger a mission. In an 8-month space
station simulation on Earth in 2000, a Russian man twice tried to kiss
a Canadian woman researcher just after two other Russians had gotten
into a bloody brawl. As a result, locks were installed between the
Russian and international crews' compartments.
Palinkas says such problems may be minimised by training astronauts
ahead of time in how to deal with stressful situations or by having
them speak with psychologists on the ground in group therapy sessions.
"You'd deal with it basically the same way you would with any
potential crew tension and conflict," he says.
But he says sex may also benefit missions by creating "a sense of
stability or normalisation". Ellison agrees, saying sex or
masturbation could help alleviate boredom and anxiety on the long,
lonely journeys through space.
"It could help or hinder, depending on how many people you've got,
their relationship, and what it means to them," she told New
Scientist.
Zero-g spot
Ellison says NASA should study the likely effects of taking couples up
on long missions, as well as issues of sexual orientation and
fertility. She suggests individual differences in sex drive could also
be used to choose crews for Mars missions.
"One could perhaps select for people who seem to have less need for
sex, or at least don't use sex as a form of self-validation," Ellison
says.
Beyond that, she adds, NASA should consider the practical issues of
out-of-this world sex. "How do you have sex in weightlessness?" she
ask. "And there's a lack of privacy – often they're monitoring pulse
rate and temperature. I don't know how that would be handled."
The NAS report also calls for NASA to study the effects of cultural
differences on how crews function and quantify the amount of radiation
astronauts will face on long-duration space missions.
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