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From: mll@aio.jsc.nasa.gov (Mark Littlefield)
Newsgroups: soc.couples,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Best position for pregnancy
Message-ID: <1991Jun13.172512.11222@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>
Date: 13 Jun 91 17:25:12 GMT
References: <1991May27.183119.26625@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <35232@mimsy.umd.edu> <1991Jun5.175954.24544@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> <20208@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
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In article <20208@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>, jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) writes:
|> In article <1991Jun5.175954.24544@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> mll@aio.jesnet.jsc.nasa.gov writes:
|> +
|> +You bet your buns that nothing like this will be "officially" carried
|> +out by NASA.  Space flight is an EXTREMELY costly activity and John Q.
|> +Public won't stand and watch his hard earned tax money go to make
|> +films of some couple "diddling" in micro-G.  No, when it does happen
|> 
(Stuff deleted....)
|>
|> Although my origial posting was in the humorous line, it seems to
|> have picked out a few individuals who consider sex a 'private, for
|> the bedroom' activity with any 'scientific' investigation left to
|> the last of a very long list of other more important scientific
|> endevors.
|> -- 
|> 
|> John Clark
|> jclark@ucsd.edu

It's not that NASA (or I for that matter) have any problems with sex
in space as a research topic.  There are a few considerations which
must be taken into account before it can be pursued:

1.  Space flight is costly.  Therfore experiments must be selected to
maximize the scientific return for the dollar.  If an experiment does
not (in the life science area at least) return large amounts of
science to support long-term manned space operations, it gets pushed
back on the cue.  And believe me, there are a LOT of experiments that
wait YEARS for the chance to fly. 

2.  NASA is a (VERY!!!) public organization, which consumes a large
amount of tax money.  Every year, NASA, like any other publicly funded
research organization, must beg money from congress.  If a researcher
in some university wants federal dollars to do research on human
sexual response, then it's not much of a problem seeing that the
amount of money is relativly small.  But if NASA asked for money to do
the same research on orbit, Congress would go ballistic.  They would
never risk reelection over such an issue.

Like I said in my previous posting, when mixed male/female crews are
posted for long periods of time, with relative privacy afforded (like
on Space Station Freedom), then sexual experimentation will occur.  It
will be a "private" investigation, however, for the reasons I said
above.


-- 
=====================================================================
Mark L. Littlefield               Automation and Robotics Division
internet: mll@aio.jsc.nasa.gov       Intelligent Systems Branch
USsnail:  Lockheed Engineering and Sciences 
          2400 Nasa Rd 1 / MS 19            
          Houston, TX 77058-3711
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