These idiots have no imagination
The Interstellar Space Sex Fallacy : Discovery News
Sex in space might be a headline grabber, but should humans venture into the space between the stars, having sex will be the least of our concerns.
These people have no imagination. Here are the main problems they list:
1) Interstellar travel (or even in-system flights) taking forever to get there
2) You need gravity to give traction for sex, and there isn't any gravity there
3) You need gravity for childbirth, and there isn't any gravity there
Solutions:
1-a) By the time we're concerned about interstellar travel, we could well have FTL or instantaneous means of transport between the stars. And in-system travel should be much quicker and easier then, not instantaneous, but short enough, perhaps going straight up out of the plane of a stellar system at high speed, then boosting fast on a track parallel to the system plane in the direction of the planet we want to get to, then, when we're "above" it, making a quick, high-speed run down to it. Other tactics can be used, as well.
2-a) Guess what: if you rotate your ship, effectively you have gravity, with walls becoming floors (and ceilings), and partitions along the walls becoming the walls of chambers and rooms. "Down" is toward a specific wall. Also, you get privacy this way, and personalizable chambers. Some creative B&D games could take care of the traction problem, too.
3-a) You can spin the ship to get gravity, as in (2-a), above, or you can spin the mother. Or, you can have her lie down on her back to give birth, which is the preferred position in many modern hospitals (I don't recommend it, though -- gravity-assist is better). For many reasons, I'd have the ship rotating around its long axis throughout the flight, whether interplanetary or interstellar. Many useful, even vitally necessary processes require gravity in some form, and also, gravity makes things less messy -- who needs tons of junk and liquids floating around the ship, causing accidents and making a mess, or a gazillion unused bungee cords for tying things down part of the problem themselves? And spinning the mother around her own navel or somesuch could present other problems, e.g., nausea (those onboard can be helped to accommodate to the weird spinning sensation by careful doses of antinausea drugs), and those in attendance on the birth would either spin with her or have difficulties helping should it be needed. As for giving birth lying on one's back . . . Yeah, in some places it's done that way, and has been ever since hospital births became fashionable (though it's more than fashion: in a hospital, if problems arise with the birth, somebody is right there to help, whereas birth in the bush can kill both mother and child). But on your back you don't have that gravity assist your ancestors evolved to use, and your poor uterine and pelvic muscles are carrying loads elephants would have problems with. So spin the ship, already!
Didn't the authors of this article ever read Robert A. Heinlein's books? Sheesh!
And besides, just think of the draw the salacious details -- however fictional -- of sex in space would be for potential tourists, investors, and scientists, all the money they'd be willing to pay to -- well, never mind. Anyway, as a way to get people interested in space, there are few better.
Sex in space might be a headline grabber, but should humans venture into the space between the stars, having sex will be the least of our concerns.
These people have no imagination. Here are the main problems they list:
1) Interstellar travel (or even in-system flights) taking forever to get there
2) You need gravity to give traction for sex, and there isn't any gravity there
3) You need gravity for childbirth, and there isn't any gravity there
Solutions:
1-a) By the time we're concerned about interstellar travel, we could well have FTL or instantaneous means of transport between the stars. And in-system travel should be much quicker and easier then, not instantaneous, but short enough, perhaps going straight up out of the plane of a stellar system at high speed, then boosting fast on a track parallel to the system plane in the direction of the planet we want to get to, then, when we're "above" it, making a quick, high-speed run down to it. Other tactics can be used, as well.
2-a) Guess what: if you rotate your ship, effectively you have gravity, with walls becoming floors (and ceilings), and partitions along the walls becoming the walls of chambers and rooms. "Down" is toward a specific wall. Also, you get privacy this way, and personalizable chambers. Some creative B&D games could take care of the traction problem, too.
3-a) You can spin the ship to get gravity, as in (2-a), above, or you can spin the mother. Or, you can have her lie down on her back to give birth, which is the preferred position in many modern hospitals (I don't recommend it, though -- gravity-assist is better). For many reasons, I'd have the ship rotating around its long axis throughout the flight, whether interplanetary or interstellar. Many useful, even vitally necessary processes require gravity in some form, and also, gravity makes things less messy -- who needs tons of junk and liquids floating around the ship, causing accidents and making a mess, or a gazillion unused bungee cords for tying things down part of the problem themselves? And spinning the mother around her own navel or somesuch could present other problems, e.g., nausea (those onboard can be helped to accommodate to the weird spinning sensation by careful doses of antinausea drugs), and those in attendance on the birth would either spin with her or have difficulties helping should it be needed. As for giving birth lying on one's back . . . Yeah, in some places it's done that way, and has been ever since hospital births became fashionable (though it's more than fashion: in a hospital, if problems arise with the birth, somebody is right there to help, whereas birth in the bush can kill both mother and child). But on your back you don't have that gravity assist your ancestors evolved to use, and your poor uterine and pelvic muscles are carrying loads elephants would have problems with. So spin the ship, already!
Didn't the authors of this article ever read Robert A. Heinlein's books? Sheesh!
And besides, just think of the draw the salacious details -- however fictional -- of sex in space would be for potential tourists, investors, and scientists, all the money they'd be willing to pay to -- well, never mind. Anyway, as a way to get people interested in space, there are few better.