Xref: utzoo alt.sex:11129 sci.space.shuttle:4874
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!hogg
From: hogg@db.toronto.edu (John Hogg)
Newsgroups: alt.sex,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Repost of NASA's "Sex in Space" Report  (LONG)
Message-ID: <90Mar21.102648est.2709@ois.db.toronto.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 90 15:27:35 GMT
References: <5089@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <1990Mar19.022336.18266@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> <864@eplunix.UUCP>
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
Lines: 25

In article <864@eplunix.UUCP> raoul@eplunix.UUCP (Nico Garcia) writes:
>Ummm, to inject a note of realism here, according to Jerry Lettvin,
>physiologist and EE of MIT fame, childbirth in zero-G won't work.
>Development of the fetus may be gravitotropic, and the menstrual
>cycle is perturbed to say the least. According to him, (this was before
>Challenger so I'm not certain if it's still true), every woman in space
>since the first Russian woman has had a hysterectomy. It seems that her
>period hit her a couple of *hours* after landing, not her normal time,
>and the resulting blood loss and shock almost killed her.

Reality^2 check: Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space, in 1963)
later gave birth to two children.  In the two books I've glanced at, no
mention was made of any problems she experienced upon landing.  (For an
easy-reading description of Tereshkova's flight, see Oberg's *Red Star
in Orbit*.)

Women do have problems in space: they don't fit the suits and stations
designed for men.  But I'd want to see a solid literature reference
before I believed the warnings quoted above.

---
John Hogg				| As engineering projects go,
hogg@csri.utoronto.ca			| this one has a certain snigger
Department of Computer Science		| factor.
University of Toronto			|	     -- Don Lindsay, CMU