#Program Scientist

[xtruss]

I Used To Work At NASA. I Have Some Insights About Sex In Space.

— Laura Faye Tenenbaum | Wednesday April 2, 2025

“We Hear Almost Everything,” My Friend and NASA Colleague, A Program Scientist For The International Space Station, Told Me Over Lunch One Day. She Was Explaining Various Mission Control Safety Measures For Monitoring Astronauts’ Health, Psychological State, and Overall Comfort. “Flight Controllers are Always Paying Attention, For Safety.”

“You Must Hear All Sorts of Stupid Stuff: Burps, Farts, Hiccups, Diarrhea,” I Responded. “They’re Human, After All.”

“We do.”

“Wow,” I leaned in. “Really? You’re the perfect person to finally tell me the truth.”

For as long as I worked in science communication at NASA, people had always asked the same two questions about human space flight. First, they wanted to know about bathroom stuff, which was easy to answer—NASA folks were open about oopsies, broken bathrooms, and diapers, aka Maximum Absorbency Garments. But after the poopy talk, people wanted to know about the sex.

People have been interested in space sex since at least 1992, when the first and only married astronaut couple joined the 50th Space Shuttle mission and cohabited in space together. After that, concerns around the physics of erections and hormone levels in microgravity began to percolate, leading to even more curiosity about astronauts’ private lives. This has been particularly true for Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who recently returned to Earth after being stuck in the International Space Station together for nearly 10 months. They’re not in a relationship and there’s no evidence that they were intimate, but there has still been speculation about zero-gravity passion. In fact, they piqued so much interest that when I responded to a question about space travel on TikTok the other day, it went massively viral. More than 9,000 people commented, many of whom were desperate to know about sex in space.

I, too, have always been fascinated. As a science writer who specialized in earth and climate science, what I learned from NASA’s Human Research teams about the effects of microgravity on the human body was both fascinating and grotesque. More than just bone density loss and muscle wasting, I found out that an astronaut’s fingernails can fall off and that their retinas thicken.

But what about the extracurriculars? When the Space Shuttle program was active, astronauts would spend somewhere between five and 16 days in orbit. But a typical length of stay on the International Space Station is about six months, and some stay as long as 300 days or more. That’s a long time to go without, especially if you take into consideration that over 60 percent of adults have had a workplace romance. There had to be some sort of chemistry up there. Of the 676 people who’ve left Earth’s gravity, wouldn’t at least a few of them be eager to join the 250-mile-high club?

“What about the rumors?” I whispered to my colleague through the din of cafeteria noise. “The astronauts have to be hooking up. If there’s audio, you’ve heard them having sex, right? Moaning?”

She paused for a bite, then looked at her sandwich to avoid eye contact with me.

“Come on,” I slapped the table. “Tell me. This isn’t the Alien movie.” I lowered my voice again. “In space, anyone can hear you come.”

“I don’t have authority to disclose that information,” she said with a smirk. Then she turned away and began giggling like a maniac. She’d said it without saying it: Yes, sex happens. Yes, NASA can hear them. And no, they’ll never admit it.

That always bothered me. Why was sex in space one of those nudge-nudge, wink-wink NASA legends that everyone knew about, but no one would disclose or admit? I’d always thought that a more open NASA would be good for the agency and good for science.

But at NASA, withholding information was the norm. I saw cover-ups firsthand when, in 2017, I presented at South by Southwest, the high-profile technology and media conference. NASA HQ sent me a list of talking points that included instructions to “Pivot away from the subject of the question to give the reporter a related NASA positive.” A week later, when Donald Trump proposed funding cuts for three NASA Earth Science missions as well as NASA’s Education Office, HQ responded with, “Don’t say anything or respond to any emails. Celebrate funding for Mars and solar system instead.”

On top of the secrecy, most people forget that astronauts on the Space Station are international (it was Canadian Chris Hadfield who went viral with his version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”). As of March 21, the Expedition 73 crew consists of three NASA astronauts: Anne McClain, Jonny Kim, and Nichole Ayers; three Russian cosmonauts: Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky; and one Japanese astronaut, commander Takuya Onishi.

The Boeing Starliner Docking with the International Space Station — NASA

I wouldn’t be surprised if the rendezvous in space were between people from different countries, but NASA’s American astronauts tend to be pretty straitlaced. The Russians have vodka, and the Italians have a specially designed espresso machine, but our astronauts are stuck with orange-flavored powdered drink mix, which tells you everything you need to know about the differences between the space programs.

In fact, aside from a few male astronauts who’ve opened up about things like space erections, the whole culture at NASA is prude. One report by the space agency suggested that missions to Mars could be all-female to avoid astronauts having sex during the long journey, as if NASA didn’t realize that obviously the women could have sex with each other. Besides, there’s always masturbation. I’m certain someone could figure out how to manage that quietly if they wanted to. The prospect of observing low-gravity ejaculation, be it your own or someone else’s, seems irresistible, even if afterward you had to chase down the droplets with tissues.

As far as logistics go, missionary position wouldn’t exist in the microgravity environment. There are also concerns that in a micro- or low-gravity situation, two people pushing against each other could float away. This means that sexy time in space would most likely need to occur inside an astronaut’s quarters, which are phone-booth-size private cabins with sleeping bags strapped to the wall. Kinky, with or without a partner. That said, much of the Space Station is covered in Velcro, which would be useful for doing it up against the wall. Astronauts could squeeze together into one of the small sleeping bags, or strap themselves together, or push against each other by bracing their arms and legs against the sides of their cabin. Sounds exciting to me.

Researchers have proposed studying sex in space, but so far, the only documented case is a pornographic science-fiction film called The Uranus Experiment. If NASA wasn’t so uptight,

I could provide more specifics. But as an insider, I’m now convinced it’s true: They do have sex on the Space Station. Just don’t expect NASA to ever admit it.

[mimi-0007]

Valerie L. Thomas (born February 8, 1943) is an American data scientist and inventor. She invented the illusion transmitter, for which she received a patent in 1980. She was responsible for developing the digital media formats that image processing systems used in the early years of NASA's Landsat program.

[yikesy]

you see the reason apollo is so natural at changing himself and quickly adjusting to new situations is that, as the God Embodiment of Civilization, he has this amazing thing named Scientific Curiosity which makes him the chosen one (1) god to not be afraid of change or the unknown

[the-meme-monarch]

(shamelessly stole these screenshots from this post) but so does this mean fp has other siblings besides void and clover? 'most of' implies to me that At Least One of their siblings was activated at this point, but if their only siblings were void and clover that wouldn't be Most Of them still asleep, that'd be Half Of. or it’d make more sense to say ‘one of’ my siblings is still asleep

also if it was one of the two we know of, who do we think was the sibling who was awake? I would think clover since it theyre the same model and they’ve been likened as twins, it’d make sense to me with fp being friend_program01 then clover would be friend_program02, but being robots, being made/activated in relation to one another doesn’t have much bearing on their ‘age’ im pretty sure. like clover could’ve been activated years later but would still be fp’s twin based on being technologically related and the same model. (also it’d be a little funny to me that the one who’s awake is Clover but the one who’s asleep is the one who’s Lucky. heehee)

it’s entirely likely void hadn’t even been built yet and clover was asleep and the sibling(s) who was awake was neither of them. another Earlier-in-the-game-than-this⬆️-one game over report says they made a new model so it wouldn’t make the same mistakes fp did, probably being the first of the newer models like void is but not about void specifically

(the rest of these⬇️ screenshots are from the official playthrough here) also something I guess I’m just not sure of, did fp know clover was their sibling before clover discovered it themself when they were both on automatic mode? we know clover and void didn’t know Beforehand

since void says they Had family, ofc talking abt fp, but it sounds to me they’re implying fp was their only family. and clover straight up says they’ve never had a sibling. and then fp says this⬇️ abt clover

(and then void shows up, implying that They were that one sibling they liked)

I don’t really have a point to all of this. I just think it’s interesting that fp seems to know all of this and just kept it to themself. I’m pretty sure since they're stated to be loveless they’re implied to be afamilial and thats why, but still.

also I find it funny void and clover never put together that since they’re both siblings with fp they’d be siblings with each other. it just never comes up HDHSJSNDJ

there might be stuff I’m forgetting, i did just skim the playthrough for these scenes i Did remember off the top of my head

[the-real-wholesome-bitch]

October 5th, 2024

Cramming for midterms

~*studying at my parents ❤（っ＾▿＾）*~

[lonelysa1lor]

RIP Harley Sawyer you would've hated kids comparing you to queer coded disney villains

[songofwizardry]

it’s actually such a difficult time to be someone who’s unironically and genuinely and wholeheartedly into space travel, and believes in space for everyone, and thinks it’s bonkers that we have had zero (0) people who aren’t white American men who have set foot on the moon, but also who hates Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. (but also tbh it’s been hard for us Elon Musk hating space nerds out here for a long time.)

like I’m 100% not a fan of this billionaire Katy Perry space tourism… thing, but also. you don’t gotta write off space travel as a concept entirely as always imperialist/the realm of billionaires/pointless/etc. it doesn’t have to be this way come with me and I can show you a better world.

[stealingyourspins]

(Click for better quality)

Ninjago Mermaid AU- Zane.

Species: Narwhal. Chosen because of their ability to withstand cold temperatures plus their color pallet.

Zane is a Marine “spy” Robot used by researchers to record and collect data of Merfolk in their natural environment. Made in a partnership with Borg Industries and Julien Laboratories, he is a revolutionary advancement in the robotics field, going past a simple language learning model level to becoming a true AI in the 25 years of development. Zane’s expedition is simple: to help marine biologists to study Merfolk and blend in the best he can.

(Alt version with no spots under the cut and non transparent versions)

[unopenablebox]

also, like, just for everyone's reference, that "ai effects on brain engagement with writing" paper is from the MIT media lab specifically, a bizarre department composed of a mix of different labs from different fields which ostensibly are meant to allow for unusual crossdisciplinary or otherwise out-of-the-box research, and in fact are mostly very self-consciously designed to a very specific vision of what "out of the box" means that hit a small set of very trendy research topics. often they do very hype-conscious slightly fluffy conceptual work about popular topics (AI, robotics, consciousness, human-tech interactions, etc) that get very widely promoted in order to encourage funding by the kind of individual philanthropist who's really into that kind of thing.

those labs do sometimes produce good research, but it's very conspicuous that they're not actually situated in a research department where they would be surrounded by their actual peers in the discipline and receive feedback and supervision by other experts. like, it's not that any given work from that department is definitely suspect in its methods or anything. it's just that, if your main interest was in doing good neuroscience, there is a whole MIT neuroscience department already, and the choice to instead be in the flashy self-promotion department and frame all your questions in the flashy self-promotion framing is. at least kind of notable.

[stone-cold-groove]

Dr. Wernher von Braun and the Saturn 1B launch vehicle - 1964.

[studisstudying]

4/7 exams ✅

Honestly the exams were better than expected for the amount I studied, more specifically the way I studied, it seems like I can't get a hold on how I should study and just end up stuffing my brain with information which I will forget soon...? And also I'm too tired to study because of the travelling 🥲I really need to learn how to drive. Anyways here are the cats I saw and also cat motivation to study over the weekend ^^

~✿

[zimwy]

its afternoon walk time but like this for a starter from the winter soldier specifically when i come back. :-)

[unnamed-idi0t]

Background practice :3 and more pixel art

[ino]

found out canadian astronauts only have a salary of about $90-$200k (canadian dollars) depending on years of experience and what they do in space etc.

i'm sorry but from what i've read about how much schooling and training astronaut-hopefuls have to go through and the fact that idk. they're being flung out of the fucking atmosphere and anything could go wrong or kill them and they have to dedicate their entire life to this dream, they should be paid like. a lot more than that

[red-dyed-sarumane]

"sorry for such a long video" its 16 minutes. i could talk for 16 minutes about marshall maximizer without a script or checking my notes. hand me the fucking song

[datascienceunicorn]

HT @dataelixir