Colonization of Mars threatens sex, said an astronaut from Britain

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The consequences of sexual contacts in space have not yet been studied

Future conquerors of Mars in outer space are waiting for a lot of threats - harmful cosmic radiation, years in microgravity and much more. Nevertheless, according to the American astronaut Helen Sharman, one of the potential dangers is not paid enough attention. It is about the likelihood that between the members of the crew of different sex there will be a sexual attraction and they will not refrain from the desire to have sex.

According to Sharman, a number of scientific studies confirm her fears, however, the relevant scientific papers have never been published. According to the astronaut, during the experiments it was shown that inside the "opposite-sex" crew, which is in isolation for a long time, hazing is very likely, even to sexual intimacy. At the same time, Sharman stressed that the consequences of possible sexual contacts in space for a person have not been studied at the moment.

Thus, Sharman calls for the crews of future Martian expeditions to consist exclusively of men or exclusively of women. She believes that the second option is preferable: according to statistics, which the astronaut has, in a purely female crew, internal conflicts are less likely to occur.

Earlier, the representative of the American University of Anderson John Milis, as well as a number of specialists representing the American aerospace agency NASA, expressed their opinionthat sex in space can not be such a good idea as it might seem to some people with a rich imagination. Firstly, it is unlikely to bring pleasure: under conditions of weightlessness, every movement forces partners to scatter in different directions, which makes it difficult even for a normal kiss. Moreover, because of the lack of gravity, attempts to engage in sex can provoke seasickness. Finally, they will not add the situation of romance and the "sweat clouds" that accumulate between the pair and fly around them. With even greater threats, attempts to conceive a child in space could be related - for an embryo, cosmic radiation is even more dangerous than for an adult, and in zero-gravity, its development with a very high probability would occur with difficult-to-predict anomalies.