Captain Kirk need not apply

NASA, in looking at a Mars mission, is — maybe, though they won’t admit it — worried about … sex.

Dr Rachel Armstrong, speaking yesterday at a British Interplanetary Society symposium on the Human Future and Space, said the US space agency Nasa was considering how to deal with the natural urges of astronauts travelling on long journeys such as a three-year trip to Mars, where the six-strong crew would be likely to include two women.
“Nasa is talking about the chemical sterilisation of astronauts on longer journeys,” Dr Armstrong said, in a talk discussing the problems humanity may face in trying to reach the planets and, eventually, the stars.
[…] [S]cientists such as Professor Powell are concerned that the emotional fallout from having a crew where some are happier than others, or where relationships are made and then fall apart, could be disastrous. He noted the comments of one Russian cosmonaut about time spent cooped up in the Mir space station that “when you have two people locked up in a very small environment for months at a time, all the conditions for murder are met.” Mix in sex, and you almost have the script of Othello in space.

Indeed.

Among the suggestions other than hi-tech “saltpeter” and relying on “professionalism,” is going for older (presumably less horny) astronauts in their 50s. That presupposes that such folks wouldn’t be interested in sex for a looooong time.

A crew heading to Mars would potentially be away for three years: six months traveling out, two years on the Red Planet waiting for the Earth to come back into alignment for the six-month trip back.

Of course, an unspoken assumption here is that sexual tension is only likely if there is a mixed-gender crew. That may be assuming a lot. I can think of a number of solutions here, but I suspect not many of them are politically (or socially) palatable. It will be interesting to see what does happen.

(via Volokh)