The Universe s03e04 Episode Script
Sex in Space
In the beginning, there was darkness and then, bang giving birth to an endless expanding existence of time, space, and matter.
Now, see further than we've ever imagined beyond the limits of our existence in a place we call "The Universe.
" Sex is the most basic of human drives.
It propagates the species, connects us provides pleasure, and permeates our culture.
As human beings expand their habitat to include the vast reaches of space are we prepared to take sex with us? The future of the human race itself may eventually depend on one question: can we have sex in space? The first baby to be born off-world is going to be a historic day for humanity.
I think that people will be surprised at how much work it is to have sex in space.
You've heard of the mile-high club.
I've been talking about the 200-mile-high club.
Prepare to experience "Sex in Space.
" When scientists envision our future in space they see cities on the Moon, colonies on Mars and, eventually, human expansion throughout the cosmos.
If we are going to make the jump between a terrestrial species and a celestial species sex and reproduction will be part of that leap.
But, actually, performing sex in space is easier said than done.
The number one enemy of sex in space is Isaac Newton's laws of motion.
The third law of motion: for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.
If you push against something, it pushes against you.
So we're going to have to learn, tediously a new law of human behavior when it comes to sex in space.
Ready to test that law and boldly go where no man and woman have gone before is Vanna Bonta.
Vanna is the author of the quantum fiction novel "Flight" a poet, and a dedicated space advocate.
Once, someone I was working with said "You know, Vanna, some people think about "what they're having for lunch tomorrow "and you're thinking hundreds of years into the future.
" Today, in Las Vegas, Nevada Vanna and her husband, Allen Newcomb are doing their part to usher in the future of human space exploration.
Vanna and Allen are rehearsing for a test of the first garment created to help facilitate sexual intimacy in the weightlessness of space.
Vanna calls her invention the 2suit.
The 2suit is a utilitarian garment that functions by itself as a flight suit and can unzip or attach with Velcro and attach to a partner's suit with very lightweight fabric inside that can expand.
Vanna and Allen will conduct the first ever test of her 2suit aboard G-Force One, a modified Boeing 737 that produces the effect of weightlessness.
As the early designer of the interiors for G-Force One we discussed many, many things that could happen within that environment and sex and intimacy and floating as couples or more together is certainly one of the things.
I think the concept of the 2suit is perfect but I also think just the philosophy behind thinking thinking beyond normal into creating a suit for two people is wonderful.
This isn't Vanna and Allen's first trip aboard G-Force One.
Vanna was invited on the aircraft's maiden voyage in 2004.
The moment I first experienced gravity lift and micro-gravity it was unlike anything I ever imagined and you can think something physically and execute it by intent.
For example, I barely thought "somersault" and it was effortless.
It was exhilarating.
It was while trying to initiate an intimate moment with her husband that Vanna realized something was lacking from the weightless experience: physical intimacy.
We somersaulted, we spun around, we flew, did various acrobatics but one impression that I really had was just how zero, zero gravity is in that there is no attraction.
You know, you just couldn't- You just couldn't quite- You know, you just really had to work at it.
Just for a kiss.
Vanna saw a future need and decided to fill it now.
The idea came to me of a 2suit which was a suit that you can hook up with your partner and then you don't have to work at staying close or hanging out.
And it's not just for sexual activity but intimacy, the feeling of intimacy and closeness of physical proximity, cuddling, cozy, hanging out.
A pair of 2suit prototypes have been manufactured and they're about to be thoroughly tested I'm very excited to be testing the 2suit and actually creating the future is very exciting and very profoundly moving to me right now.
Being married to the creator of the 2suit is a real rocket ride.
Vanna is a brilliantly creative Renaissance woman and, besides, she's hot.
To create the effects of zero gravity G-Force One takes a parabolic vertical flight path.
As the pilot arcs the aircraft over the peak of the parabola the occupants experience about 30 seconds of weightlessness.
It's the same effect you feel on a roller coaster when you go over the top of a hill and fly out of your seat.
During the flight, Vanna and Allen's challenge is to complete one docking maneuver, kiss, and then undock before the aircraft comes out of its parabola and gravity returns.
Vanna created her 2suit to be worn on long-duration space flights.
But on G-Force One, she and Allen will have less than 30 seconds of weightlessness to put the suit through its paces.
During the first two parabolas, Vanna and Allen acclimate themselves to weightlessness.
On the third parabola, their docking attempt is interrupted by a group of wayward passengers.
During the next several parabolas Vanna and Allen struggle against time and the whims of weightlessness to achieve docking.
Finally, on the eighth parabola, a successful docking, a kiss and a successful undocking.
Well, I would call the mission a success.
I think it's a functional design, and I would like to test it in more prolonged zero-gravity conditions because I think that really will be the next step.
I was pleased with it and really enjoyed the flight.
Vanna's 2suit is just one small step towards humankind colonizing the universe.
The giant leap will occur when we actually begin making babies in space.
What little we know about reproductive and developmental biology in space suggests to us that there are going to be huge problems if the species tries to make a single jump from a terrestrial civilization to a weightless civilization.
The first problem is zero gravity or more accurately, micro-gravity.
When we have a space shuttle or space station orbiting Earth we call it micro-gravity because gravity is still present and there's still a slight pull towards the Earth.
It's just not very strong.
When you take a human and put them in a micro-g setting the bones are losing calcium the heart is getting lazy, it's losing mass the skeletal muscle is losing mass.
You lose red cell mass, you lose plasma volume.
The second problem is high-energy radiation atomic-scale particles that fill the vacuum of space.
There is a possibility of sterility caused by exposure to radiation and this has been something that we've seen from nuclear power plants and people who work around high doses of radiation.
These radiation particles on Earth were shielded by a magnetic field in the Earth's atmosphere but in space, they can move unimpeded until they hit something like human tissue.
And when that happens, they can kill the cell or they can just damage it.
And when they damage it, what happens is they will take out part of your DNA but the cell still lives and replicates, and that cell then mutates.
This is the same thing as we know of as cancer on Earth.
To see how micro-gravity and high-energy radiation might affect sexual reproduction scientists have conducted animal tests in space.
Animal studies are really the first step before we can take a human into space and have them become pregnant or give birth.
So you have conception.
You have the development of a placenta.
You have the development of organ systems prenatally.
You have the process of birth.
All of these things are in common between small animals and humans.
The first animal to successfully mate in space was the medaka fish, which flew on the space shuttle in 1994.
The medaka study, the animals mated in space they laid eggs, and the babies hatched in space telling us that all of those aspects of reproduction are possible in a fish.
But people are mammals, and there are many intricate phases involved in mammalian development from the start, conception, all the way through birth.
A study with rats aboard a 1995 space shuttle mission showed an abnormal behavior in newborns.
For the first week after birth, the young rat pups weren't able to turn themselves from their backs to their bellies which is a very characteristic response in rats.
We think that rearing them in micro-gravity caused that sensory system to be understimulated by gravity and, hence, it developed differently in space.
Other experiments have shown even more severe effects.
Studies have shown that male rats that have flown in space when you mate them to non-flown female rats after their flight the offspring exhibits a lot of growth retardation and even developmental effects like hydrocephaly kidney abnormalities.
Researchers agree that more animal studies are needed before we can begin to study human sexual reproduction in space.
We're approaching year 50 of human space flight and we still have yet to see a single mammal go all the way from an egg to an embryo, all the way through gestation be bom, develop in a zero-g setting and then have the first generation reproduce in space.
So I think we need a new priority to really understand fully understand mammalian development in a weightless setting.
The key to human reproduction in space will come via animal studies.
But no animal study could've predicted what one astronaut referred to as the Viagra effect.
and liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery.
Both NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency have stated that they've conducted no experiments into human sexuality or reproduction.
But that doesn't mean scientists can't piece together what might occur if a man and a woman made an attempt to conceive a child in space.
If the male isn't physically aroused, then intercourse isn't possible.
However, according to at least one astronaut being in space produced what he called "the Viagra effect.
" In his book "Riding Rockets" Space shuttle mission specialist Mike Mullane wrote about a persistent and at times painful condition he experienced every day when he woke up.
NASA flight surgeons believe the redistribution of blood in micro-gravity is the cause.
The fluid shift may make it easier for men to have sex in space.
That may be an interesting thing that we'll have to investigate.
In fact, there's some evidence that men tend to have erections easier in space because of the fluid shift.
The conclusion? Males need to worry less about performance issues in space than they do on Earth.
I'm not sure that human beings would have much trouble with the actual act of mating itself in micro-gravity I mean, providing they had the desire.
We do have a small sample size of four shuttle crew members who basically said that their sexual desire actually decreased on orbit, and this correlated with decreased testosterone levels as well.
Now, that's a small sample size but it does give you an indication of what might be going on in zero g.
The next unknown is how micro-gravity might affect fertilization.
Long-term exposure to space radiation could damage both the sperm and, quite possibly, all of the female's eggs.
If she's of child-bearing age then one of those eggs, if it has been damaged could produce a child that had some sort of birth defect or the failure of the child to be born alive.
Once released into the fallopian tubes the millions of sperm swim towards the egg.
One tenacious sperm will burrow inside beginning the process of fertilization.
Once the egg is moving down the fallopian tube and is propelled to the uterus will it embed itself in the wall of the uterus and begin developing a blood supply and a placenta and grow into a baby? We just don't know that.
If fertilization is successful cell division and growth of the embryo begins.
As the embryo develops into a fetus gravity becomes increasingly critical.
For a human fetus, a full-term pregnancy is about 36 weeks.
And up to about the 26th week, the fetus is neutrally buoyant.
After that, the fetus becomes more dense and so the fetus tends to sink in the uterus in the amniotic fluid.
So from that point forward there does seem to be a lot of effects of gravity in the developing organ systems of the fetus.
If you're not exposed to gravity during that critical phase the development is basically very abnormal.
An animal study conducted in the 1980s turned up troubling results affecting the embryo's skeletal structure and heart.
There have been some studies done on the biocosmos satellites in which a developing rat embryo because you're in a weightless environment there's anywhere from a 13 to a 17-percent decrease in bone mineralization of all the fetal bones.
We know that the extensors along the spine are a smaller mass.
We know that the left ventricle of the heart is actually smaller.
And it makes sense when you consider that that ventricle does not have to pump against gravity to move blood.
It's unknown how the same lack of gravity might impact a human fetus but it's likely to have similar effects.
If scientists can find a way to bring a healthy human baby to term in space then a whole new kind of delivery room will be required.
Giving birth in space will be messy in space just like it is here on the ground.
You have liquids and fluids involved, and blood.
You have the chance of liquids flying everywhere so ventilation systems and cleaning systems need to be developed to help the birth process.
Space architect John Spencer has given some thought to how a zero-gravity birthing chamber might work.
One of the design requirements of a zero-gravity birthing chamber will be a fairly rapid flow of water.
And the reason for that is cleanliness but also keeping the chamber clear of blood so that doctors who are helping with the birthing can actually see everything that is going on.
John was inspired by water birthing in which babies are delivered into warm water.
Proponents of the method say it eases the transition from the womb to life outside the mother.
John also believes weightlessness will provide similar benefits.
When you're in the womb it's like being in zero gravity to begin with so going from a zero-gravity womb environment to a zero-gravity room environment might be an easier transition.
Based on all we know, that day is still very far in the future.
Here's what it all boils down to.
If gravity affects all aspects of vertebrate development then there are profound implications when you consider successful procreation in an extraterrestrial environment.
One of those implications is that babies born in space might have a difficult time visiting Earth.
We'll mostly likely meet people, a hundred years from now who have evolved in those environments.
If they come to Earth they're going to need to wear an Earth suit which will have an exoskeleton kind of thing which helps them with their weaker muscles and weaker bones and everything.
So it's interesting.
We're going to create eventually a space species who will need an Earth suit to return to the mother planet.
One possible solution is to create artificial gravity in space using centrifuges.
Centrifuges use centrifugal force to create an effect known as gravity loading.
You can imagine a woman, a pregnant woman seated at one end or even laying down with her feet towards the center of it.
She could be reading, working, talking to people, whatever and that might go on for an hour or two enough so that there's a feeling of up and down that might be beneficial for the fetus.
The first baby to be born off-world is going to be an amazing, amazing experience.
And it's going to be a historic day for humanity.
Scientists think it's only a matter of time.
I think eventually we will be reproducing in space.
We just need to figure out how to do it right.
What better opportunity to figure out how to do it right than NASA's planned three-year mission to Mars.
But will sex be invited along for the ride? Sixty-five million years ago another species dominated the planet as humans do today.
The dinosaurs were the preeminent life forms on Earth for over 150 million years but all it took was one single very bad afternoon and that took them out of the picture forever and they never came back.
The reason that it's important for human beings to get off the planet is that if we don't the Earth itself is a single-point failure.
If you don't have a backup if you don't have an alternate pathway if that one critical link breaks then the whole system undergoes a catastrophic failure.
But if reproduction doesn't happen and if it doesn't happen successfully the species is not going to survive.
Despite such warnings, human sexuality and reproduction remains a taboo subject at NASA.
NASA is really an incredible organization.
It's an amazing place to be.
However, NASA is an organization of engineers, by engineers, and for engineers.
To an engineer, the light switch is either on or the light switch is off.
There's no gray area.
In the life sciences there are only two absolutes: life and death and everything else is a shade of gray.
As far as sex in space in all the years that I spent at NASA I don't recall ever having a conversation about it with a crew or with mission management so it just hasn't been a big concern.
NASA is funded by taxpayers and taxpayers want to know that their dollars are not being used for astronauts frolicking in outer space having space escapades at their expense.
The public wants to know that their tax dollar is being used wisely and that's why NASA is so skittish about the whole concept.
Okay, we copy that.
Sounds good.
NASA currently has plans to return humans to the Moon by the year 2020.
That's just a warmup for the main event a three-year voyage to Mars and back.
In its master plan for the mission NASA left out all references to human sexuality an omission cited in a report by the National Academy of Sciences.
As far as sexuality in space that's an area that hasn't been researched at all.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have come to conclude that humans need to be connected in order for normal functioning.
We need to be psychologically connected we need to be emotionally connected and we also need to have some physical connectivity with individuals.
So intimacy at all these different levels is very important.
The problem with long-duration space crews is that the model, to date, has been one that precludes any sort of intimacy.
Some experts believe that astronauts should be expected to sublimate their needs and desires for the sake of the mission.
That's unrealistic, and it's not going to happen.
It would lead to very dysfunctional individuals if they were able to maintain that kind of separateness.
So, in order for the team to be functional intimacy on all these different levels is going to be part and parcel of just normal human functioning, and we need to plan for that.
The counterargument is that sex between crew members could create dangerous distractions and divisions.
Arguments may occur, problems may happen tiffs may happen.
One person might get jealous over another person or might start lusting for another partner, something like that.
That will happen.
It's going to be hard to avoid it.
We are human beings and there could be petty issues that may pop up but you have a long time to talk it out, communicate it.
Sending single-gender crews has been suggested as a way to inhibit or prevent sex on long-duration missions.
I think it's unrealistic to think that just because you have all one gender that there is not going to be any needs for sexual contact or that sex won't happen.
I think that's kind of a naive approach.
Another plan calls for sending only married couples.
It's also unrealistic to expect that simply being married is going to be the solution.
So I don't think that marriage is a foolproof way to approach it any more than to send all one gender.
I think that what we need to do is to select individuals who are emotionally mature who are comfortable in their sexuality and then you give them training to deal with issues as they come up and then you simply have to trust them to do a good job.
Sheryl's idea is to have the crew first live together for nine months in a location that mirrors the isolated environment of Mars.
She suggests Antarctica.
One of the ways we can test this out is to send them down to Antarctica to winter over for nine months.
During that period of time they can not only work out how their social issues are but they can work out any intimacy issues.
They can find out if they're going to be attracted to each other and, if they are, how are they going to deal with that and how the group is going to deal with that.
That way, when we actually put them in the space rocket to send them off to Mars or to send them to the Moon to inhabit there they'll know what to expect, and they'll know how to deal with it.
I think that taking the attitude that they're professionals and they'll just muddle their way through is a recipe for disaster.
Despite NASA's denials and their history of avoiding the subject some say sex has already occurred on a U.
S.
space flight.
Some believe it's unrealistic to think that out of the hundreds of adventurous risk-takers who've rocketed into space that at least two of them didn't engage in some cosmic coupling.
I wouldn't be surprised if sex has already happened in space.
I mean, we've had a married couple on the NASA shuttle.
And if you've done it on Earth, wouldn't you try it in space? The married couple in question are astronauts Jan Davis and Mark Lee.
In 1992, Davis and Lee blasted off for a seven-day mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.
NASA has no official policy banning sex in space.
NASA has not told people you must not have sexual intercourse.
People are expected "to know better than that.
" But they do have a policy against sending married couples into space.
Davis and Lee met during mission training fell in love, and wed just before liftoff.
Because it would have been too disruptive to replace one of them on the mission, NASA made an exception.
Could the rest of the crew have allowed them some private time? It is possible that the crew members did collude to help the married couple do something up there but it's highly doubtful just considering the conservative nature of the astronauts the conservative nature of NASA to allow for such a thing to take place.
I wouldn't say that I would hope that they broke regulations but I could say that I hope that they utilized the opportunity to consummate a union in an environment and a situation and a mission that truly celebrated the beauty of the union of two human beings.
If the couple did engage their options for privacy were limited.
The crew area of the space shuttle comprises just over 2,200 cubic feet about the same area as an average-sized living room.
In terms of the space shuttle orbiter the best place to have sex is the airlock leading out into the cargo bay.
It's big enough for two people.
If there's any place onboard the shuttle, that's where it might happen.
Today's International Space Station is far roomier than the space shuttle with 12,600 cubic feet spread over 15 modules.
I'm very familiar with the interiors of the current International Space Station and the more intimate areas of that space station are actually the Russian modules.
They're more personalized, for example and that's where it would basically happen in the Russian modules.
Mark Davis and Jan Lee have refused to confirm or deny the rumors leaving only speculation as to whether anyone has probed the final frontier.
The fact that every single minute of the day is logged and looked at by Mission Control here on the planet Earth you realize that it's perhaps the most impractical and unromantic and unsexy place for romance in outer space.
Once you become an astronaut, you don't want to do anything that might jeopardize your opportunity to have another flight in space.
If I had a bet, I would bet that the Russians have been more involved in the issue of zero-gravity sex and sex in space than the Americans have.
The Russians are a little bit more open-minded.
They have guitars in space.
They've even in the past had cigarettes onboard space stations, and liquor.
And why not? Speculating about whether sex in space has happened or whether astronauts have done it relegates it to the category of tabloid mentality.
I think that the question is not whether it actually has happened or not but we need to get past that whole titration about whether there's been sex in space and say there will be sex in space and we need to stop agonizing over the whole issue.
Regardless of whether it has happened everyone agrees that sex in space comes with certain advantages and disadvantages.
I think people are better-looking in space.
The faces get a little bit more flush, women's breasts get larger.
With the face being a little more puffy, the wrinkles go away.
The legs are thinner because there's less fluid down there.
Women don't need bras because there's nothing to pull them down.
But looking sexier doesn't help you grapple with the physics of micro-gravity sex.
As we saw on G-Force One, the slightest nudge from your partner can send you reeling.
The problem is you've still got mass.
If somebody was to push down on somebody very hard it could send them off in another direction across the cabin of a spaceship and could do severe damage.
You can break a penis physically.
And it's actually very difficult to then, you know do the operation to get it all back together again.
In light of the challenges, what would the experts say if they were invited into space to have a go at hitting the zero-g spot? Sure.
Oh, yeah.
I'd be there, I'd be there.
I would have sex in space instantly.
I'm a scientist, and as a scientist, we like to observe we like to study from a distance, but we don't like to partake.
We don't like to interfere with the subject we are studying.
Yeah, my wife said I could only have sex in space with her.
I really don't know.
It's something I've really not thought about.
I've thought more about giving birth in space actually.
We've seen Vanna Bonta's concept for how to accomplish sexual intimacy in micro-gravity.
Another method, supposedly once tested in the tanks NASA uses to train astronauts is called the three-dolphin technique.
Two dolphins sometimes have a hard time coupling together.
A third one that can press them together actually makes it easier for the coupling process to happen.
That may well happen in zero gravity also.
You might want to have a third person that helps facilitate you or keeps you in the middle of the zero-gravity environment.
The only problem is no one bothered to tell dolphins about the three-dolphin technique.
Marine biologists say it's not true.
One thing everyone does agree upon is that one or more of the mating partners needs to be restrained.
What you could have is some handholds and perhaps legholds similar- made out of bar kind of material- similar to the handholds you have to assist you in a bathtub.
Any mechanism that would simulate constraints on motion that would at all mimic gravity could probably facilitate mating in space.
It could be Velcro.
And one of the parties could wrap legs around something and be able to secure him or herself with their knees.
I think that human ingenuity will give us answers that we can't hypothetical^ guess at.
That when you actually put people in the environment they'll figure a way to do it.
And then perhaps footholds similar to the kind of things you put your feet in in water skis to secure the bottom.
For sex in space, I think you might want a seatbelt.
We have done a lot of work trying to do CPR in space.
And when you think about it, cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a similar kind of complex act, you know between two people, right? We evolved this big system where you would do CPR.
We put a lot of thought into that system.
You know what the astronauts decided early on when they evaluated the system? They decided the system was too cumbersome and they could do it all with duct tape.
I'm not saying that duct tape is a sexual aid in space.
I'm just saying duct tape is like The Force.
It has a light side and dark side, and it binds the universe together.
Harvey's invention sounds very good to me.
For one thing, it doesn't involve a third party the so-called dolphin effect which I think would be quite uncomfortable for me.
Speculating about coupling in micro-gravity may soon be a thing of the past.
Get ready for a sexy new vision of the future courtesy of the private space industry.
There was a time not so long ago when space travel and space travelers were the epitome of sexiness.
Space was very sexy in the 1960s.
If you ask any of the astronauts who were part of the space program in the 1960s they will all tell you that they were actually sort of sex gods.
Two things became the equivalent of a cold shower for space travel.
One, the promise of average citizens traveling into space was never fulfilled.
Houston now controlling.
People got the impression that the shuttle was something that would also be commercialized.
So they got all excited about it in the seventies coming out of this sort of sexy era of space with the Moon program and then the general public were vastly disappointed.
We have main engine start and liftoff.
The second thing was the Challenger explosion.
I think that caused a real change sea change in the public's attitude.
They began to discount the idea that they would ever go to space.
But that's all about to change, thanks to the private space industry.
The first space tourism venture to take flight is Virgin Galactic brainchild of British billionaire Sir Richard Branson.
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is selling their tickets for $200,000 apiece to go up to the edge of space which is about 62 miles.
And it is the closest we can get to a true space experience.
Virgin Galactic's maiden voyage is still a few years away.
But that hasn't stopped the sexually adventurous with money to burn from inquiring about private flights.
They've inquired about the idea of having their honeymoon in space and, actually, as part of that process consummating their marriage in space.
And that is an idea that we are not going to follow up with to start with.
We need to understand much better the risks that they could encounter before we would even contemplate the idea of allowing somebody who's a honeymooner to consummate their marriage in space.
But the fact of the matter is is that some people do want to do this.
Groundbreaking as Virgin Galactic is it's small potatoes compared to what the Space Tourism Society is cooking up.
You've heard of the mile-high club.
I've been talking about the 200-mile-high club.
We see super yachts or cruise ships in orbit around the Earth or circling between the Earth and the Moon as a key element to true space tourism.
We're talking about entertainment.
We're talking about fun.
We're talking about drinking.
We're talking about sex.
We're talking about all sorts of wild and crazy things here.
Leaping ahead to the year 2050 let's see what a newlywed couple might experience on their honeymoon aboard a space yacht designed by John Spencer.
This is a mockup of John's space yacht.
I'm designing a discotheque.
This would be right here in the center section here.
This would be a central sphere.
Imagine, if you will, a giant 60-foot-diameter sphere that will be almost completely glass or some type of glass-like material and you can see in all directions.
And then you'll have people floating around and dancing and sailing and doing all sorts of things for entertainment and for pleasure and for fun.
Now, after a long night of dancing and carousing and having a lot of fun the couple want to have a little bit more fun.
On Earth, that might include a romantic interlude in a hot tub.
John Spencer envisions a space-based hot tub he calls a "hot sphere.
" You can imagine that your honeymoon suite is a sphere and within the center of that is this colored warm water.
And in that, you can immerse yourselves hanging on to each other for lovemaking or relaxing.
The sphere will be kept in place within the volume by airflow.
So it won't move around, but you can splash and the water will come right back as little spheres into it.
After a soak in the hot sphere our couple retires to their honeymoon suite.
There they'll find Sam's rebuttal to Newton's third law- the snuggle tunnel.
So pretend this is a giant window inside the honeymoon suite.
So we have the fantastic panoramic view and then they can expand this thing here which is known as the snuggle tunnel.
We'll have illumination inside, we'll have ventilation inside.
As you can see it's furry.
Gotta have it furry.
Gotta make it soft and comfortable for people to do their thing.
They go in here.
And then they're snuggling in the snuggle tunnel.
Might the snuggle tunnel become basic equipment on Virgin Galactic Spaceship 2? It's clearly not something for our early days of suborbital space tourism.
But, you know, I'm very used to working in an organization whereby we also think about the future.
And the fact is, one day there might be a Spaceship 3 or a Spaceship 4.
And the concept of a snuggle tunnel of some sort is entirely logical.
Is it only a matter of time before NASA jumps on the snuggle tunnel bandwagon? I've never heard of any plans at NASA to develop a snuggle tunnel.
So maybe not.
But while the space tourism industry plays up the more titillating aspects of sex in space life sciences researchers have their own reasons for being hopeful.
I think space tourism is the venue in which sex in space will be addressed more comfortably and more openly and I think that that will be the milieu in which it will finally be comfortably dealt with.
It seems inevitable that where humans go sex will surely follow even into the cold, vast reaches of the universe.
The whole part of exploring is you're not only exploring locations it's an exploration of ourselves, a perspective of ourselves.
And part of that is intimacy, lovemaking, relationships.
We are progeny of not just the Earth but of the cosmos.
And as its progeny, it is our duty to use the best of our ability and continue that into other planets.
Who knows what we'll find? To paraphrase the poet Dante, "The heavens swirl above us "and our eyes are still cast to the ground.
" Sex is part of the human experience and wherever humans go, sex will go, too.
That's logical.
It's rational.
That's the way it should be.
Now, see further than we've ever imagined beyond the limits of our existence in a place we call "The Universe.
" Sex is the most basic of human drives.
It propagates the species, connects us provides pleasure, and permeates our culture.
As human beings expand their habitat to include the vast reaches of space are we prepared to take sex with us? The future of the human race itself may eventually depend on one question: can we have sex in space? The first baby to be born off-world is going to be a historic day for humanity.
I think that people will be surprised at how much work it is to have sex in space.
You've heard of the mile-high club.
I've been talking about the 200-mile-high club.
Prepare to experience "Sex in Space.
" When scientists envision our future in space they see cities on the Moon, colonies on Mars and, eventually, human expansion throughout the cosmos.
If we are going to make the jump between a terrestrial species and a celestial species sex and reproduction will be part of that leap.
But, actually, performing sex in space is easier said than done.
The number one enemy of sex in space is Isaac Newton's laws of motion.
The third law of motion: for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.
If you push against something, it pushes against you.
So we're going to have to learn, tediously a new law of human behavior when it comes to sex in space.
Ready to test that law and boldly go where no man and woman have gone before is Vanna Bonta.
Vanna is the author of the quantum fiction novel "Flight" a poet, and a dedicated space advocate.
Once, someone I was working with said "You know, Vanna, some people think about "what they're having for lunch tomorrow "and you're thinking hundreds of years into the future.
" Today, in Las Vegas, Nevada Vanna and her husband, Allen Newcomb are doing their part to usher in the future of human space exploration.
Vanna and Allen are rehearsing for a test of the first garment created to help facilitate sexual intimacy in the weightlessness of space.
Vanna calls her invention the 2suit.
The 2suit is a utilitarian garment that functions by itself as a flight suit and can unzip or attach with Velcro and attach to a partner's suit with very lightweight fabric inside that can expand.
Vanna and Allen will conduct the first ever test of her 2suit aboard G-Force One, a modified Boeing 737 that produces the effect of weightlessness.
As the early designer of the interiors for G-Force One we discussed many, many things that could happen within that environment and sex and intimacy and floating as couples or more together is certainly one of the things.
I think the concept of the 2suit is perfect but I also think just the philosophy behind thinking thinking beyond normal into creating a suit for two people is wonderful.
This isn't Vanna and Allen's first trip aboard G-Force One.
Vanna was invited on the aircraft's maiden voyage in 2004.
The moment I first experienced gravity lift and micro-gravity it was unlike anything I ever imagined and you can think something physically and execute it by intent.
For example, I barely thought "somersault" and it was effortless.
It was exhilarating.
It was while trying to initiate an intimate moment with her husband that Vanna realized something was lacking from the weightless experience: physical intimacy.
We somersaulted, we spun around, we flew, did various acrobatics but one impression that I really had was just how zero, zero gravity is in that there is no attraction.
You know, you just couldn't- You just couldn't quite- You know, you just really had to work at it.
Just for a kiss.
Vanna saw a future need and decided to fill it now.
The idea came to me of a 2suit which was a suit that you can hook up with your partner and then you don't have to work at staying close or hanging out.
And it's not just for sexual activity but intimacy, the feeling of intimacy and closeness of physical proximity, cuddling, cozy, hanging out.
A pair of 2suit prototypes have been manufactured and they're about to be thoroughly tested I'm very excited to be testing the 2suit and actually creating the future is very exciting and very profoundly moving to me right now.
Being married to the creator of the 2suit is a real rocket ride.
Vanna is a brilliantly creative Renaissance woman and, besides, she's hot.
To create the effects of zero gravity G-Force One takes a parabolic vertical flight path.
As the pilot arcs the aircraft over the peak of the parabola the occupants experience about 30 seconds of weightlessness.
It's the same effect you feel on a roller coaster when you go over the top of a hill and fly out of your seat.
During the flight, Vanna and Allen's challenge is to complete one docking maneuver, kiss, and then undock before the aircraft comes out of its parabola and gravity returns.
Vanna created her 2suit to be worn on long-duration space flights.
But on G-Force One, she and Allen will have less than 30 seconds of weightlessness to put the suit through its paces.
During the first two parabolas, Vanna and Allen acclimate themselves to weightlessness.
On the third parabola, their docking attempt is interrupted by a group of wayward passengers.
During the next several parabolas Vanna and Allen struggle against time and the whims of weightlessness to achieve docking.
Finally, on the eighth parabola, a successful docking, a kiss and a successful undocking.
Well, I would call the mission a success.
I think it's a functional design, and I would like to test it in more prolonged zero-gravity conditions because I think that really will be the next step.
I was pleased with it and really enjoyed the flight.
Vanna's 2suit is just one small step towards humankind colonizing the universe.
The giant leap will occur when we actually begin making babies in space.
What little we know about reproductive and developmental biology in space suggests to us that there are going to be huge problems if the species tries to make a single jump from a terrestrial civilization to a weightless civilization.
The first problem is zero gravity or more accurately, micro-gravity.
When we have a space shuttle or space station orbiting Earth we call it micro-gravity because gravity is still present and there's still a slight pull towards the Earth.
It's just not very strong.
When you take a human and put them in a micro-g setting the bones are losing calcium the heart is getting lazy, it's losing mass the skeletal muscle is losing mass.
You lose red cell mass, you lose plasma volume.
The second problem is high-energy radiation atomic-scale particles that fill the vacuum of space.
There is a possibility of sterility caused by exposure to radiation and this has been something that we've seen from nuclear power plants and people who work around high doses of radiation.
These radiation particles on Earth were shielded by a magnetic field in the Earth's atmosphere but in space, they can move unimpeded until they hit something like human tissue.
And when that happens, they can kill the cell or they can just damage it.
And when they damage it, what happens is they will take out part of your DNA but the cell still lives and replicates, and that cell then mutates.
This is the same thing as we know of as cancer on Earth.
To see how micro-gravity and high-energy radiation might affect sexual reproduction scientists have conducted animal tests in space.
Animal studies are really the first step before we can take a human into space and have them become pregnant or give birth.
So you have conception.
You have the development of a placenta.
You have the development of organ systems prenatally.
You have the process of birth.
All of these things are in common between small animals and humans.
The first animal to successfully mate in space was the medaka fish, which flew on the space shuttle in 1994.
The medaka study, the animals mated in space they laid eggs, and the babies hatched in space telling us that all of those aspects of reproduction are possible in a fish.
But people are mammals, and there are many intricate phases involved in mammalian development from the start, conception, all the way through birth.
A study with rats aboard a 1995 space shuttle mission showed an abnormal behavior in newborns.
For the first week after birth, the young rat pups weren't able to turn themselves from their backs to their bellies which is a very characteristic response in rats.
We think that rearing them in micro-gravity caused that sensory system to be understimulated by gravity and, hence, it developed differently in space.
Other experiments have shown even more severe effects.
Studies have shown that male rats that have flown in space when you mate them to non-flown female rats after their flight the offspring exhibits a lot of growth retardation and even developmental effects like hydrocephaly kidney abnormalities.
Researchers agree that more animal studies are needed before we can begin to study human sexual reproduction in space.
We're approaching year 50 of human space flight and we still have yet to see a single mammal go all the way from an egg to an embryo, all the way through gestation be bom, develop in a zero-g setting and then have the first generation reproduce in space.
So I think we need a new priority to really understand fully understand mammalian development in a weightless setting.
The key to human reproduction in space will come via animal studies.
But no animal study could've predicted what one astronaut referred to as the Viagra effect.
and liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery.
Both NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency have stated that they've conducted no experiments into human sexuality or reproduction.
But that doesn't mean scientists can't piece together what might occur if a man and a woman made an attempt to conceive a child in space.
If the male isn't physically aroused, then intercourse isn't possible.
However, according to at least one astronaut being in space produced what he called "the Viagra effect.
" In his book "Riding Rockets" Space shuttle mission specialist Mike Mullane wrote about a persistent and at times painful condition he experienced every day when he woke up.
NASA flight surgeons believe the redistribution of blood in micro-gravity is the cause.
The fluid shift may make it easier for men to have sex in space.
That may be an interesting thing that we'll have to investigate.
In fact, there's some evidence that men tend to have erections easier in space because of the fluid shift.
The conclusion? Males need to worry less about performance issues in space than they do on Earth.
I'm not sure that human beings would have much trouble with the actual act of mating itself in micro-gravity I mean, providing they had the desire.
We do have a small sample size of four shuttle crew members who basically said that their sexual desire actually decreased on orbit, and this correlated with decreased testosterone levels as well.
Now, that's a small sample size but it does give you an indication of what might be going on in zero g.
The next unknown is how micro-gravity might affect fertilization.
Long-term exposure to space radiation could damage both the sperm and, quite possibly, all of the female's eggs.
If she's of child-bearing age then one of those eggs, if it has been damaged could produce a child that had some sort of birth defect or the failure of the child to be born alive.
Once released into the fallopian tubes the millions of sperm swim towards the egg.
One tenacious sperm will burrow inside beginning the process of fertilization.
Once the egg is moving down the fallopian tube and is propelled to the uterus will it embed itself in the wall of the uterus and begin developing a blood supply and a placenta and grow into a baby? We just don't know that.
If fertilization is successful cell division and growth of the embryo begins.
As the embryo develops into a fetus gravity becomes increasingly critical.
For a human fetus, a full-term pregnancy is about 36 weeks.
And up to about the 26th week, the fetus is neutrally buoyant.
After that, the fetus becomes more dense and so the fetus tends to sink in the uterus in the amniotic fluid.
So from that point forward there does seem to be a lot of effects of gravity in the developing organ systems of the fetus.
If you're not exposed to gravity during that critical phase the development is basically very abnormal.
An animal study conducted in the 1980s turned up troubling results affecting the embryo's skeletal structure and heart.
There have been some studies done on the biocosmos satellites in which a developing rat embryo because you're in a weightless environment there's anywhere from a 13 to a 17-percent decrease in bone mineralization of all the fetal bones.
We know that the extensors along the spine are a smaller mass.
We know that the left ventricle of the heart is actually smaller.
And it makes sense when you consider that that ventricle does not have to pump against gravity to move blood.
It's unknown how the same lack of gravity might impact a human fetus but it's likely to have similar effects.
If scientists can find a way to bring a healthy human baby to term in space then a whole new kind of delivery room will be required.
Giving birth in space will be messy in space just like it is here on the ground.
You have liquids and fluids involved, and blood.
You have the chance of liquids flying everywhere so ventilation systems and cleaning systems need to be developed to help the birth process.
Space architect John Spencer has given some thought to how a zero-gravity birthing chamber might work.
One of the design requirements of a zero-gravity birthing chamber will be a fairly rapid flow of water.
And the reason for that is cleanliness but also keeping the chamber clear of blood so that doctors who are helping with the birthing can actually see everything that is going on.
John was inspired by water birthing in which babies are delivered into warm water.
Proponents of the method say it eases the transition from the womb to life outside the mother.
John also believes weightlessness will provide similar benefits.
When you're in the womb it's like being in zero gravity to begin with so going from a zero-gravity womb environment to a zero-gravity room environment might be an easier transition.
Based on all we know, that day is still very far in the future.
Here's what it all boils down to.
If gravity affects all aspects of vertebrate development then there are profound implications when you consider successful procreation in an extraterrestrial environment.
One of those implications is that babies born in space might have a difficult time visiting Earth.
We'll mostly likely meet people, a hundred years from now who have evolved in those environments.
If they come to Earth they're going to need to wear an Earth suit which will have an exoskeleton kind of thing which helps them with their weaker muscles and weaker bones and everything.
So it's interesting.
We're going to create eventually a space species who will need an Earth suit to return to the mother planet.
One possible solution is to create artificial gravity in space using centrifuges.
Centrifuges use centrifugal force to create an effect known as gravity loading.
You can imagine a woman, a pregnant woman seated at one end or even laying down with her feet towards the center of it.
She could be reading, working, talking to people, whatever and that might go on for an hour or two enough so that there's a feeling of up and down that might be beneficial for the fetus.
The first baby to be born off-world is going to be an amazing, amazing experience.
And it's going to be a historic day for humanity.
Scientists think it's only a matter of time.
I think eventually we will be reproducing in space.
We just need to figure out how to do it right.
What better opportunity to figure out how to do it right than NASA's planned three-year mission to Mars.
But will sex be invited along for the ride? Sixty-five million years ago another species dominated the planet as humans do today.
The dinosaurs were the preeminent life forms on Earth for over 150 million years but all it took was one single very bad afternoon and that took them out of the picture forever and they never came back.
The reason that it's important for human beings to get off the planet is that if we don't the Earth itself is a single-point failure.
If you don't have a backup if you don't have an alternate pathway if that one critical link breaks then the whole system undergoes a catastrophic failure.
But if reproduction doesn't happen and if it doesn't happen successfully the species is not going to survive.
Despite such warnings, human sexuality and reproduction remains a taboo subject at NASA.
NASA is really an incredible organization.
It's an amazing place to be.
However, NASA is an organization of engineers, by engineers, and for engineers.
To an engineer, the light switch is either on or the light switch is off.
There's no gray area.
In the life sciences there are only two absolutes: life and death and everything else is a shade of gray.
As far as sex in space in all the years that I spent at NASA I don't recall ever having a conversation about it with a crew or with mission management so it just hasn't been a big concern.
NASA is funded by taxpayers and taxpayers want to know that their dollars are not being used for astronauts frolicking in outer space having space escapades at their expense.
The public wants to know that their tax dollar is being used wisely and that's why NASA is so skittish about the whole concept.
Okay, we copy that.
Sounds good.
NASA currently has plans to return humans to the Moon by the year 2020.
That's just a warmup for the main event a three-year voyage to Mars and back.
In its master plan for the mission NASA left out all references to human sexuality an omission cited in a report by the National Academy of Sciences.
As far as sexuality in space that's an area that hasn't been researched at all.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have come to conclude that humans need to be connected in order for normal functioning.
We need to be psychologically connected we need to be emotionally connected and we also need to have some physical connectivity with individuals.
So intimacy at all these different levels is very important.
The problem with long-duration space crews is that the model, to date, has been one that precludes any sort of intimacy.
Some experts believe that astronauts should be expected to sublimate their needs and desires for the sake of the mission.
That's unrealistic, and it's not going to happen.
It would lead to very dysfunctional individuals if they were able to maintain that kind of separateness.
So, in order for the team to be functional intimacy on all these different levels is going to be part and parcel of just normal human functioning, and we need to plan for that.
The counterargument is that sex between crew members could create dangerous distractions and divisions.
Arguments may occur, problems may happen tiffs may happen.
One person might get jealous over another person or might start lusting for another partner, something like that.
That will happen.
It's going to be hard to avoid it.
We are human beings and there could be petty issues that may pop up but you have a long time to talk it out, communicate it.
Sending single-gender crews has been suggested as a way to inhibit or prevent sex on long-duration missions.
I think it's unrealistic to think that just because you have all one gender that there is not going to be any needs for sexual contact or that sex won't happen.
I think that's kind of a naive approach.
Another plan calls for sending only married couples.
It's also unrealistic to expect that simply being married is going to be the solution.
So I don't think that marriage is a foolproof way to approach it any more than to send all one gender.
I think that what we need to do is to select individuals who are emotionally mature who are comfortable in their sexuality and then you give them training to deal with issues as they come up and then you simply have to trust them to do a good job.
Sheryl's idea is to have the crew first live together for nine months in a location that mirrors the isolated environment of Mars.
She suggests Antarctica.
One of the ways we can test this out is to send them down to Antarctica to winter over for nine months.
During that period of time they can not only work out how their social issues are but they can work out any intimacy issues.
They can find out if they're going to be attracted to each other and, if they are, how are they going to deal with that and how the group is going to deal with that.
That way, when we actually put them in the space rocket to send them off to Mars or to send them to the Moon to inhabit there they'll know what to expect, and they'll know how to deal with it.
I think that taking the attitude that they're professionals and they'll just muddle their way through is a recipe for disaster.
Despite NASA's denials and their history of avoiding the subject some say sex has already occurred on a U.
S.
space flight.
Some believe it's unrealistic to think that out of the hundreds of adventurous risk-takers who've rocketed into space that at least two of them didn't engage in some cosmic coupling.
I wouldn't be surprised if sex has already happened in space.
I mean, we've had a married couple on the NASA shuttle.
And if you've done it on Earth, wouldn't you try it in space? The married couple in question are astronauts Jan Davis and Mark Lee.
In 1992, Davis and Lee blasted off for a seven-day mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.
NASA has no official policy banning sex in space.
NASA has not told people you must not have sexual intercourse.
People are expected "to know better than that.
" But they do have a policy against sending married couples into space.
Davis and Lee met during mission training fell in love, and wed just before liftoff.
Because it would have been too disruptive to replace one of them on the mission, NASA made an exception.
Could the rest of the crew have allowed them some private time? It is possible that the crew members did collude to help the married couple do something up there but it's highly doubtful just considering the conservative nature of the astronauts the conservative nature of NASA to allow for such a thing to take place.
I wouldn't say that I would hope that they broke regulations but I could say that I hope that they utilized the opportunity to consummate a union in an environment and a situation and a mission that truly celebrated the beauty of the union of two human beings.
If the couple did engage their options for privacy were limited.
The crew area of the space shuttle comprises just over 2,200 cubic feet about the same area as an average-sized living room.
In terms of the space shuttle orbiter the best place to have sex is the airlock leading out into the cargo bay.
It's big enough for two people.
If there's any place onboard the shuttle, that's where it might happen.
Today's International Space Station is far roomier than the space shuttle with 12,600 cubic feet spread over 15 modules.
I'm very familiar with the interiors of the current International Space Station and the more intimate areas of that space station are actually the Russian modules.
They're more personalized, for example and that's where it would basically happen in the Russian modules.
Mark Davis and Jan Lee have refused to confirm or deny the rumors leaving only speculation as to whether anyone has probed the final frontier.
The fact that every single minute of the day is logged and looked at by Mission Control here on the planet Earth you realize that it's perhaps the most impractical and unromantic and unsexy place for romance in outer space.
Once you become an astronaut, you don't want to do anything that might jeopardize your opportunity to have another flight in space.
If I had a bet, I would bet that the Russians have been more involved in the issue of zero-gravity sex and sex in space than the Americans have.
The Russians are a little bit more open-minded.
They have guitars in space.
They've even in the past had cigarettes onboard space stations, and liquor.
And why not? Speculating about whether sex in space has happened or whether astronauts have done it relegates it to the category of tabloid mentality.
I think that the question is not whether it actually has happened or not but we need to get past that whole titration about whether there's been sex in space and say there will be sex in space and we need to stop agonizing over the whole issue.
Regardless of whether it has happened everyone agrees that sex in space comes with certain advantages and disadvantages.
I think people are better-looking in space.
The faces get a little bit more flush, women's breasts get larger.
With the face being a little more puffy, the wrinkles go away.
The legs are thinner because there's less fluid down there.
Women don't need bras because there's nothing to pull them down.
But looking sexier doesn't help you grapple with the physics of micro-gravity sex.
As we saw on G-Force One, the slightest nudge from your partner can send you reeling.
The problem is you've still got mass.
If somebody was to push down on somebody very hard it could send them off in another direction across the cabin of a spaceship and could do severe damage.
You can break a penis physically.
And it's actually very difficult to then, you know do the operation to get it all back together again.
In light of the challenges, what would the experts say if they were invited into space to have a go at hitting the zero-g spot? Sure.
Oh, yeah.
I'd be there, I'd be there.
I would have sex in space instantly.
I'm a scientist, and as a scientist, we like to observe we like to study from a distance, but we don't like to partake.
We don't like to interfere with the subject we are studying.
Yeah, my wife said I could only have sex in space with her.
I really don't know.
It's something I've really not thought about.
I've thought more about giving birth in space actually.
We've seen Vanna Bonta's concept for how to accomplish sexual intimacy in micro-gravity.
Another method, supposedly once tested in the tanks NASA uses to train astronauts is called the three-dolphin technique.
Two dolphins sometimes have a hard time coupling together.
A third one that can press them together actually makes it easier for the coupling process to happen.
That may well happen in zero gravity also.
You might want to have a third person that helps facilitate you or keeps you in the middle of the zero-gravity environment.
The only problem is no one bothered to tell dolphins about the three-dolphin technique.
Marine biologists say it's not true.
One thing everyone does agree upon is that one or more of the mating partners needs to be restrained.
What you could have is some handholds and perhaps legholds similar- made out of bar kind of material- similar to the handholds you have to assist you in a bathtub.
Any mechanism that would simulate constraints on motion that would at all mimic gravity could probably facilitate mating in space.
It could be Velcro.
And one of the parties could wrap legs around something and be able to secure him or herself with their knees.
I think that human ingenuity will give us answers that we can't hypothetical^ guess at.
That when you actually put people in the environment they'll figure a way to do it.
And then perhaps footholds similar to the kind of things you put your feet in in water skis to secure the bottom.
For sex in space, I think you might want a seatbelt.
We have done a lot of work trying to do CPR in space.
And when you think about it, cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a similar kind of complex act, you know between two people, right? We evolved this big system where you would do CPR.
We put a lot of thought into that system.
You know what the astronauts decided early on when they evaluated the system? They decided the system was too cumbersome and they could do it all with duct tape.
I'm not saying that duct tape is a sexual aid in space.
I'm just saying duct tape is like The Force.
It has a light side and dark side, and it binds the universe together.
Harvey's invention sounds very good to me.
For one thing, it doesn't involve a third party the so-called dolphin effect which I think would be quite uncomfortable for me.
Speculating about coupling in micro-gravity may soon be a thing of the past.
Get ready for a sexy new vision of the future courtesy of the private space industry.
There was a time not so long ago when space travel and space travelers were the epitome of sexiness.
Space was very sexy in the 1960s.
If you ask any of the astronauts who were part of the space program in the 1960s they will all tell you that they were actually sort of sex gods.
Two things became the equivalent of a cold shower for space travel.
One, the promise of average citizens traveling into space was never fulfilled.
Houston now controlling.
People got the impression that the shuttle was something that would also be commercialized.
So they got all excited about it in the seventies coming out of this sort of sexy era of space with the Moon program and then the general public were vastly disappointed.
We have main engine start and liftoff.
The second thing was the Challenger explosion.
I think that caused a real change sea change in the public's attitude.
They began to discount the idea that they would ever go to space.
But that's all about to change, thanks to the private space industry.
The first space tourism venture to take flight is Virgin Galactic brainchild of British billionaire Sir Richard Branson.
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is selling their tickets for $200,000 apiece to go up to the edge of space which is about 62 miles.
And it is the closest we can get to a true space experience.
Virgin Galactic's maiden voyage is still a few years away.
But that hasn't stopped the sexually adventurous with money to burn from inquiring about private flights.
They've inquired about the idea of having their honeymoon in space and, actually, as part of that process consummating their marriage in space.
And that is an idea that we are not going to follow up with to start with.
We need to understand much better the risks that they could encounter before we would even contemplate the idea of allowing somebody who's a honeymooner to consummate their marriage in space.
But the fact of the matter is is that some people do want to do this.
Groundbreaking as Virgin Galactic is it's small potatoes compared to what the Space Tourism Society is cooking up.
You've heard of the mile-high club.
I've been talking about the 200-mile-high club.
We see super yachts or cruise ships in orbit around the Earth or circling between the Earth and the Moon as a key element to true space tourism.
We're talking about entertainment.
We're talking about fun.
We're talking about drinking.
We're talking about sex.
We're talking about all sorts of wild and crazy things here.
Leaping ahead to the year 2050 let's see what a newlywed couple might experience on their honeymoon aboard a space yacht designed by John Spencer.
This is a mockup of John's space yacht.
I'm designing a discotheque.
This would be right here in the center section here.
This would be a central sphere.
Imagine, if you will, a giant 60-foot-diameter sphere that will be almost completely glass or some type of glass-like material and you can see in all directions.
And then you'll have people floating around and dancing and sailing and doing all sorts of things for entertainment and for pleasure and for fun.
Now, after a long night of dancing and carousing and having a lot of fun the couple want to have a little bit more fun.
On Earth, that might include a romantic interlude in a hot tub.
John Spencer envisions a space-based hot tub he calls a "hot sphere.
" You can imagine that your honeymoon suite is a sphere and within the center of that is this colored warm water.
And in that, you can immerse yourselves hanging on to each other for lovemaking or relaxing.
The sphere will be kept in place within the volume by airflow.
So it won't move around, but you can splash and the water will come right back as little spheres into it.
After a soak in the hot sphere our couple retires to their honeymoon suite.
There they'll find Sam's rebuttal to Newton's third law- the snuggle tunnel.
So pretend this is a giant window inside the honeymoon suite.
So we have the fantastic panoramic view and then they can expand this thing here which is known as the snuggle tunnel.
We'll have illumination inside, we'll have ventilation inside.
As you can see it's furry.
Gotta have it furry.
Gotta make it soft and comfortable for people to do their thing.
They go in here.
And then they're snuggling in the snuggle tunnel.
Might the snuggle tunnel become basic equipment on Virgin Galactic Spaceship 2? It's clearly not something for our early days of suborbital space tourism.
But, you know, I'm very used to working in an organization whereby we also think about the future.
And the fact is, one day there might be a Spaceship 3 or a Spaceship 4.
And the concept of a snuggle tunnel of some sort is entirely logical.
Is it only a matter of time before NASA jumps on the snuggle tunnel bandwagon? I've never heard of any plans at NASA to develop a snuggle tunnel.
So maybe not.
But while the space tourism industry plays up the more titillating aspects of sex in space life sciences researchers have their own reasons for being hopeful.
I think space tourism is the venue in which sex in space will be addressed more comfortably and more openly and I think that that will be the milieu in which it will finally be comfortably dealt with.
It seems inevitable that where humans go sex will surely follow even into the cold, vast reaches of the universe.
The whole part of exploring is you're not only exploring locations it's an exploration of ourselves, a perspective of ourselves.
And part of that is intimacy, lovemaking, relationships.
We are progeny of not just the Earth but of the cosmos.
And as its progeny, it is our duty to use the best of our ability and continue that into other planets.
Who knows what we'll find? To paraphrase the poet Dante, "The heavens swirl above us "and our eyes are still cast to the ground.
" Sex is part of the human experience and wherever humans go, sex will go, too.
That's logical.
It's rational.
That's the way it should be.