Space Station says sayonara to sex

William Atkins
Monday, 28 June 2010 22:33

Science - Space

According to space shuttle commander Alan Poindexter, while visiting Japan, astronauts aboard the International Space Station have working relationships and do not have personal relationships, implying that sex does not occur in space.

A group of reporters asked Poindexter, the commander of space shuttle Discovery during the STS-131 mission, about sex in space, during a visit to Tokyo, Japan.

His response was "We are a group of professionals. We treat each other with respect and we have a great working relationship. Personal relationships are not ... an issue. We don't have them and we won't." [AFP (6-28-2010): 'No sex please, we're astronauts: NASA commander']

Poindexter led the STS-131 mission to the International Space Station that launched on April 5, 2010 for its re-supply trip to the orbiting laboratory. They landed back on Earth on April 20, 2010.

On the 33rd space shuttle mission to the Space Station, the crew of STS-131 consisted of four men and three women: commander Alan Poindexter, pilot James P. Dutton Jr. and mission specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Rick Mastracchio, Naoko Yamazaki, Clayton Anderson and Stephanie Wilson.

The Discovery crew delivered a multi-purpose logistics module filled with science racks to the International Space Station.

During the mission, Anderson and Mastracchio performed three spacewalks to replace an ammonia tank assembly, retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station's exterior, and replace a rate gyroscope assembly on the S0 element of the truss of the Space Station.

Page two continues with more about sex in space, or, at least, the apparent lack of sex in space.