Wait, why can’t astronauts have sex anyway? Is sex in space bad?

The most dangerous part is always re-entry. /sorry
RichVR
3391
On a Mars length mission unexpected pregnancy would be a bad thing.
I would expect them to nip all the nuts before anyone blasts off.
If only there were some way to … I don’t know, prevent unwanted pregnancies or something! My goodness, think of what we could accomplish!
Dog bites off an astronaut’s penis?
RichVR
3395
Nothing is 100% effective. Except for abstinence.
True, especially safely arriving on Mars after a 1.5 year journey.

Calelari
3397
Depends on the zero-g behavior of all the astronaut juice the menfolk would be generating…
CraigM
3398
Thing is we don’t know, biologically, what the impacts on fertility and pregnancy would be on the human body in a zero G environment. Heck even the act of sex would be difficult without gravity.
But… a first time trip to Mars is not the time to learn these things. As mentioned, a pregnancy would be bad, very bad, news.
arrendek
3399
A zero g birth! Imagine the cleanup afterwards. No wait, don’t.
OK, so the theory is that we’ll send a crew of human beings into space for several years in a small, enclosed space under circumstances that will probably alternate between high stress/high intensity and high boredom. And we also don’t expect these people to have sex with each other. At all. I hope they take a fuckload of crossword puzzles along for the ride.
It’s almost like it should go in the What Could Possibly Go Wrong? thread.
CraigM
3402
Oh it would be foolish indeed not to plan and prepare for that.
So any mission planner worth their salt will not ask ‘how do we keep them from having sex’, and instead ‘how do we allow them to be human beings and not result in unwanted and potentially dangerous pregnancies during the mission’.
Vasectomies can reverse themselves!
Happened to a friend of mine! (Actually a friend in this case, not an “asking for a friend”).
RichVR
3405
And tubal ligation can cause an ectopic pregnancy. Not good at all.
Also, how would having an all-female crew prevent astronauts from having sex?
Being pregnant on a flight to Mars sounds like it could be a great start to a movie!