So a six man crew has just touched down on Earth after a nearly two-year Russian expedition to mars. Well, that’s not quite true. The five men have returned from an imaginary trip to a fake mars; in reality, they spent the entirety of the “mission” sitting in some trailers in a parking garage in Moscow. Except for a brief interlude in which several of the fake marsonauts took a brief stroll on the surface of fake mars – also inside a trailer in the parking lot.
The idea behind all this? To see if six dudes could manage to stay sane while stuck in cramped quarters together for the length of time it would take to go to mars and back.
One of the many weird details about this weird faux-mission is that it was an all-dude affair. None of the marsonauts were women. Not, evidently, because the mission planners thought that women would be less capable than men of handing the pressure of a fake (or even a real) mission to mars. But because if they sent any ladies along, the men would want to have sex with them. As one news account explains:
Controversially, the experiment did not include a woman, with researchers clearly wanting to avoid it degenerating into a scientific version of television’s sexual tension-filled “Big Brother”.
When the “returning” marsonauts stepped out of their “spaceship” at the end of the experiment, the same news account notes,
They were each presented with a flower by young female researchers in white coats as a reward for their endeavours.
It has not been confirmed if the marsonauts popped boners at the sight.
I for one support the notion of male-only spaceflights, real or phony. And not just because the ladies would turn our space capsules into deep space slutmobiles. Just imagine what would happen if a female-infested space crew had an encounter of the third kind with some really handsome space alien dudes – the interstellar equivalents of Brad Pitt. You know what would happen next: those dirty sluts would sell out our planet for a ride on the little green cock carousel.
Ah, who am I kidding, those sluts would sneer at the little green men, holding out for the tall greys.
Audiovidual supplement: Three videos. One, Rachel Maddow talking about the mission at its halfway point. Two, a brief look at everyday life on the “spaceship.” And last but definitely not least: a video of the fake-mars walk. Inside a trailer. You have to watch at least a few seconds of that one.
Honestly, it’s good to know that people are looking into these sorts of things. I wonder if anyone is doing any research into things like weightless childbirth or surgical procedures.
Molly: She’s a bit daffy. I forget her name, and for all that she’s working on this, she wants to limit it to married people, or something.
I forget the details, but she seems fairly tradtional, and a bit confused, if interested in something which stands out.
I wonder if my ob-gyn would think I’m a weirdo if I asked him about the possibility of zero gravity childbirth? It really makes me curious to know if it’s safe or possible.
I can’t believe there already is someone working on the issue of space sex. I learn something new every day.
I’m sure you could do tests with mice or rats regarding zero gravity birth or surgeries.
Is a water birth supposed to approach, in part, a more weightless environment? Or is it just that liquid is comfy? ‘Cause that seems like the cheapest type of pseudo-zero G birth you could do (and certainly mammals do it all the time.)
bionicmommy: I can’t see anyway to arrange for zero-G (other than water as neutral) which doesn’t involve serious positive-G.
Space elevator! …Or did you mean a way that actually currently exists? :p
Well, water does help you feel more weightless (swimming is great for later pregnancy for that reason….wish I could get to a pool) but I think it’s quite a bit different than zero-G. I think they’re going to have to start with rats/mice (assuming they haven’t already; I seem to remember something years ago about pregnant small animals being sent to space).
Be interesting to find out. I’d imagine water breaking & all the blood afterward would make it horribly messy. Not to mention all the other bodily function involved in labour & delivery.
Be interesting to find out. I’d imagine water breaking & all the blood afterward would make it horribly messy. Not to mention all the other bodily function involved in labour & delivery.
I think having some sort of vacuum on hand would be essential.
I mean aside from the cold, dark vacuum of space obviously. 🙂
I’m now imagining something like those little sucking tubes dentists use when your teeth are cleaned and rinsed… Combo childbirth + dentist visit = most fun medical procedure EVAH. XD
It might be simpler to make all space deliveries be done by Cesarean.
Low but non-zero gee would alleviate many of the problems and retain most of the benefits, I think. Having a bowling ball-sized belly for the third trimester is bad enough at one gee! The moon is about 1/6th gee, which would be lovely – and rotating 2001-style space stations would have a centrifugal equivalent. Space hotels wanted, stat!
bionicmommy: I don’t think zero-G is a good place for surgery. The problem of drainage is increased, and working in zero-G has a lot of physics problems. The had to redesign a lot of the ways people do things because gravity makes it possible to keep some of the effects of the laws of motion less obvious.
They had to find ways to brace themselves to do all sorts of things that are no problem in a gravity field.
When I’m standing on the ground I can, because of gravity, borrow the mass of the earth to keep the effects of equal and opposite reactions from spinning me around when I need to break a bolt free. If I put all that energy into, say freeing a lug-nut, when there isn’t gravity to keep the car on the ground, I’ll end up lifting the car, not removing the nut. It was more exhausting to do labor in a zero-G field than in a 1-G one.
The problems for surgery are that things won’t stay put, as reliably, when you move them, and they are more likely to move on their own, etc.
Yeah, I really can’t imagine a cesarean in zero-G. It’s bad enough they lift your uterus out & put it on your belly in order to sew it closed, can’t imagine having it floating there while they do that. *shudder*
I think you’d need a giant vacuum bag for normal birth. You’d just have to be careful to turn it off when the baby is crowning. And watch that it’s really, really low suction or I can think of several bad things that could happen.
Erm…sorry, I’m more than a bit of a birth junkie, if I could get/afford training, I’d be a midwife. The weirdest things are interesting.
“Just imagine what would happen if a female-infested space crew had an encounter of the third kind with some really handsome space alien dudes – the interstellar equivalents of Brad Pitt.”
George Clooney is a favorite go-to guy of the MRAsphere to exemplify what we wimmenz think is “hot”.
Dude is old as hell.