Sex in Space!
Ethics? Who need them? Astronauts, apparently. According to the Associated Press, NASA is now considering the more thorny problems related to crew health, such as disposing of the body of a dead crew member, and deciding when a critically injured crew member's life support should be turned off. To date, these questions remain unanswered, but the NASA report does state that policies need to be developed to address them. However, while NASA is able to discuss the ethics of death in space, they have not yet managed to bring themselves to talk about s...e...x in space.
And why should they? Is it really any of NASA's business? And more importantly – does NASA really believe they will have any control over what astronauts do on longer space flights? As conversations with Earth become increasingly protracted and then stop altogether, anything Mission Control has to say will necessarily become less relevant to the crew on the spacecraft. Particularly on a one-way flight where the crew would not have to explain themselves upon their return to Earth, what's stopping them from changing the rules en route? It's certainly not going to be a paragraph in a policy document from NASA.
Even if the astronauts do follow the guidelines of NASA, will we accept "I was just doing what I was told" when we hear the reports of what took place during the spaceflight? Or will we be so traumatised by the events that in our efforts to reject the experience from our collective psyche, we will marginalise the returned astronauts – who left as heroes, but have returned as pariahs. It certainly wouldn't be the first time we've done this.
While I agree that raising awareness of the ethical issues that astronauts may face on longer space flights is important, there's precious little we can do once they take off, other than support them as far as we are able. What we need are cheap and easy-to-use spacecraft, and lots of them. Don't rely on one ship at a time – a la Sunshine – send hundreds of them, as many as you can – raise the odds of success, get frequent and plentiful feedback that you can use to adjust crews and spacecraft on subsequent missions. On a planet currently getting crispier by the day, colonisation of other planets is our Plan B.
It'll be messy in many ways, but just do it. Please. Posted by Renee Dekenah
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