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Has anyone admitted to having sex in space?

What policies/protocols are there in place for this kind of activity?

dwjohnston
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    Afaik, getting an erection would be harder (no pun intended), but not impossible (it's not a requirement for sex anyway). Seeing how male and female astronauts have lived side by side for several man-years on the ISS and Mir, and how a married couple was once in space together (Nancy Davis and Mark Lee) and considering human nature, I think it's safe to say it must have happened at some point, but no one ever came out saying so. – Rikki-Tikki-Tavi Sep 01 '14 at 12:31
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    On a 7 day space shuttle flight, one could imagine that schedule pressures and a likely absence of privacy could thwart even a determined effort by a couple to join/found a "100 mile high club". On the other hand, a couple aboard the ISS for 6 months... hard to imagine they wouldn't find the time and privacy. – Anthony X Sep 01 '14 at 13:53
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    I imagine possible "witnesses", aboard and in mission control, would be quite inclined to look the other way. – Rikki-Tikki-Tavi Sep 01 '14 at 14:27
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    Makes one wonder if there has ever been serious (non prurient) consideration of sending a consenting couple to the ISS to "do it for science" - or at least make their best attempt and do a clinical write up of their experience and observations. – Anthony X Sep 01 '14 at 17:04
  • The shuttle crew compartment is quite small -- while the pressurized volume is substantial, once all the equipment is included, it feels like a small dorm room. Take a space that small, and fill it with seven people -- would you do it? – Tristan Sep 04 '14 at 20:56
  • CNET.com: Big Bang: The science of sex in space – uhoh Apr 07 '18 at 02:11
  • The article linked in the answer mentions "Although the fetus developed properly, the rats that developed in micro-gravity lacked the ability to right themselves." I really wonder how the human genome would fair, though the experiment required to assess this would be glaringly unethical. – Magic Octopus Urn Jun 12 '18 at 19:31
  • I think the shuttle is too cramped to get it on; there aren't even any private sleeping compartments – Dragongeek Dec 11 '19 at 10:35
  • @AnthonyX with accompanying blooper reals. – Magic Octopus Urn Dec 11 '19 at 14:41

1 Answers1

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Wikipedia has an article on the topic of sex in space. The notable conclusion from that document is that no human spaceflight agency has any documentation regarding flight experiments conducted on human sexuality in space.

However, rats and I think other non-mammals have been conceived, undergone embryonic development, been born, and been raised in space. Some information on the rats can be found here.

Note that when we finally do get around to doing it, some enterprising designers / engineers have already developed garments designed specifically for copulation in zero-G.

dotancohen
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    There's a more recent article in CNET.com: Big Bang: The science of sex in space which has additional background information and seems further support your conclusion. – uhoh Apr 07 '18 at 02:15
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    Wow that rats article was neato! Thank you for your contribution. "Although the fetus developed properly, the rats that developed in microgravity lacked the ability to right themselves." Makes me wonder what crazy stuff our genome couldn't handle in space, and what we'd almost instantaneously adapt to. – Magic Octopus Urn Jun 12 '18 at 19:27
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    The rats referred to at that link were not born in space. They were fetuses that were taken up and raised in microgravity. https://web.archive.org/web/20110809060317/http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102222743.html – called2voyage Dec 11 '19 at 16:41