Sex in space: Time to talk about it?
By Simon Dubé, Concordia University; Dave Anctil, Université Laval; Judith Lapierre, Université Laval; Lisa Giaccari, Concordia University, and Maria Santaguida, Concordia University
Houston, we have a problem! Love and sex in space need to happen if we hope to travel long distances and become an interplanetary species, but space organizations are not ready.
National agencies and private space companies – such as NASA and SpaceX – aim to colonize Mars and send humans into space for long-term missions, but they have yet to address the intimate and sexual needs of astronauts or future space inhabitants.
This situation is untenable and needs to change if we hope to settle new worlds and continue our expansion in the cosmos. We’ll need to learn how to safely reproduce and build pleasurable intimate lives in space. To succeed, however, we also need space organizations to adopt a new perspective on space exploration: one that considers humans as whole beings with needs and desires.
As researchers exploring the psychology of human sexuality and studying the psychosocial aspects of human factors in space, we propose that it is high time for space programs to embrace a new discipline: space sexology, the comprehensive scientific study of extraterrestrial intimacy and sexuality.
