NASA Experiments with Sex in Space

SUMMARY OF RESULTS

1) An elastic belt around the waist of the two partners. The partners faced each other in the standard or missionary posture.

Entry was difficult and once it was achieved, it was difficult to maintain. With the belt worn around the hips, entry was easy, but it was difficult to obtain the necessary thrusting motion; as a result, this approach was not satisfactory.

2) Elastic belts around the thighs of the two partners. The female's buttocks were against the groin of the male, with her back against his chest.

An interesting experiment, but ultimately unsatisfactory because of the difficulty of obtaining the necessary thrusting motion.

3) An elastic belt binding the thighs of the female to the waist of the male. The female's buttocks were against the male's groin, while her knees straddled his chest.

Of the approaches tried with an elastic belt, this was by far the most satisfactory. Entry was difficult, but after the female discovered how to lock her toes over the male's thighs, it was found that she could obtain the necessary thrusting motions. The male found that his role was unusually passive but pleasant.

One problem both partners noticed with all three elastic belt solutions was that they reminded the partners of practices sometimes associated with bondage, a subject that neither found particularly appealing. For couples who enjoy such associations, however, and especially for those who routinely enjoy female superior relations, this solution should be recommended.

4) An inflatable tunnel enclosing and pressing the partners together. The partners faced each other in the standard missionary posture. The tunnel enclosed the partners roughly from the knees to waist and pressed them together with an air pressure of approximately 0.01 standard atmospheres.

Once properly aroused, the uniform pressure obtained from the tunnel was sufficient to allow fairly normal marital relations, but getting aroused while in the tunnel was difficult, and once aroused outside the tunnel, getting in was difficult. This problem made the entire approach largely unusable.

5) The same inflatable tunnel used in run 4, but enclosing the partners legs only. The partners faced each other in the missionary position.

6) The same inflatable tunnel used in run 4, but with the partners in the posture used for run 2.

Foreplay was satisfactory with both approaches; in the second case, we found that it could be accomplished inside the tunnel, quite unlike our experience with run 4. Unfortunately, we were unable to achieve entry with either approach.

A general disadvantage of the inflatable tunnel approach was that the tunnel itself tended to get sticky with sweat and other discharges. We feel that the difficulty of keeping a tunnel clean in zero-G makes these solutions most unsatisfactory.

7) The standard missionary posture, augmented by having the female hook her legs around the male's thighs and both partners hug each other.

8) The posture used in run 3, but with the female holding herself against the male by gripping his buttocks with her heels.

Initially, these were very exciting and promising approaches, but as the runs approached their climaxes, an unexpected problem arose. One or the one or the other partner tended to let go, and the hold provided by the remaining partner was insufficient to allow continued thrusts. We think that partners with sufficient self-control might be able to use these positions, but we found them frustrating.

9) The posture used in run 2, but with the male using his hands to hold the female while the female used her heels to hold the male's thighs.

Most of the responsibility for success rested on the male here, and we were successful after a series of false starts, but we did not find the experience to be particularly rewarding.

10) Each partner gripping the other's head between their thighs and hugging the other's hips with their arms.

This was the only run involving non-procreative marital relations, and it was included largely because it provided the greatest number of distinct ways for each partner to hold the other. This 4 points redundant hold was good enough that we found this solution to be most satisfactory. In fact, it was more rewarding than analogous postures used in a gravitational field.

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RECOMMENDATION

We recommend that married couples considering maintaining their marital relations during a space mission be provided with an elastic belt such as we used for run 3 (see Appendix II). In addition, we advise that a training program be developed that recommends the solutions used in runs 3 and 10 and warns against the problems encountered in runs 7 and 8.

We recognize that any attempt by NASA to recommend approaches to marital relationships will be politically risky, but we feel that, especially in cases where long missions are planned, thought be given to screening couples applying to serve on such missions for their ability to accept or adapt to the solutions used in runs 3 and 10.

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