No, this isn't one of those bait-and-switch titles. It really is about sex in space. Via Deepen the Mystery, a Guardian story on the hazards of sexual encounters on long-duration space missions.
They should be out-of-this-world experiences. But US experts have warned that sex in space will bring problems not pleasure for men and women heading to the moon and Mars. A panel of scientists has told Nasa interplanetary passion could cause chaos to its latest plans to send humans on long missions. Cramped in spaceships for years, surrounded by the starry void, astronauts thoughts are bound to turn to romance, states the report, 'Bioastronautics Roadmap: a risk reduction strategy for human exploration of space'. The resulting close encounters could have profound consequences, it adds. Without supplies of the necessary precautions, zero-gravity romps could lead to zero-gravity pregnancies.
Snickering aside, I'm sure it's a real problem -- send a bunch of people into isolation in close quarters for a period of years, and something will happen. Now, I know that certain of my co-bloggers are reliable readers of the Guardian science section, but apparently they were going to keep this story to themselves. The extra value-added you get from Cosmic Variance, of course, is that we will actually link directly to the NASA Bioastronautics Roadmap from which the story derives. Although, as it turns out, a cursory inspection didn't turn up anything nearly as off-color as you'd find in a novel by a recently indicted former high-ranking White House staffer. But this bit was interesting:
Serious interpersonal conflicts have occurred in space flight. The failure of flight crews to cooperate and work effectively with each other or with flight controllers has been a periodic problem in both US and Russian space flight programs. Interpersonal distrust, dislike, misunderstanding and poor communication have led to potentially dangerous situations, such as crewmembers refusing to speak to one another during critical operations, or withdrawing from voice communications with ground controllers. Such problems of group cohesiveness have a high likelihood of occurrence in prolonged space flight and if not mitigated through prevention or intervention, they will pose grave risks to the mission. Lack of adequate personnel selection, team assembly, or training has been found to have deleterious effects on work performance in organizational research studies. The duration and distance of a Mars mission significantly increases this risk. The distance also reduces countermeasure options and increases the need for autonomous behavioral health support systems.
Oh, great. I see a Stranger in a Strange Land scenario on our horizon.
