no sex in space, my love

Frustratingly vague article on why scientists don't recommend sex in space. About the only useful information is this:

...according to new research, getting down while we're way up high could theoretically cause health problems for spacefaring lovers.

James Bond may have given it a go in Moonraker, but experiments on mating plants by scientists at Montreal University show that weightlessness affects the way cells are transported inside living things, causing 'traffic jams' on the vital highways that connect different processes.

Although researcher Anja Geitmann said they could not draw any specific conclusions on the implications for animal - and human - sex in space, she added that intercellular transport is important in a variety of human cells.

Geitmann told LiveScience.com that many neural disease, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and [Huntington's] are all related to this 'trafficking'.

The phrase "the way cells are transported inside living things" implies that entire cells are being moved inside the body, presumably along vascular pathways. But later on, the phrase "intercellular transport" implies that some X is being transported from cell to cell. What exactly are the "vital highways"? What "different processes" are connected by them? This article could use some serious rewriting, because right now, it sounds for all the world like a description of bodily phenomena from a New Age-y perspective.

Bothersome vagueness notwithstanding, I guess that means that I and my funny little honey won't be playing the freefall version of Dodge Spoo anytime soon. It could also mean that the best astronauts for long space missions might very well be monks. In the meantime, regarding those experiments, we should probably see what happens with two randy dogs before giving it a go ourselves; along with providing us crucial sexual information, the YouTube video of dogs mating in freefall would easily outstrip "Gangnam Style" in hits. (PSY's song might work as the background track for the dog vid.)

I think this initial report is just a bump in the road. Sex in space will happen eventually, if it hasn't happened already, and it won't be long before we have our first orbiting brothel, our first documented space orgy, and a novel branching-out of the porn industry. "Yum-oh!" as Rachel Ray says. Come to think of it, that should be the name of the next space vehicle we launch: the starship Yum-oh, with its EVOO drive.


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