taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Wow. An incredible shot up at Astronomy Pic of the Day, taken by an unnamed astronaut on-board the ISS with a digital camera. Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, and the M25 are all very clearly visible.

So I guess that means the Great Wall is no longer the only man-made structure visible from space then ;)

Tags: astronaut, astronomy, camera, day, great, iss, pic, regent, shot, wall

Sex in space rears it’s head again (ooer): apparently NASA have sent over a pregnancy testing kit for the {astro,cosmo}nauts on the ISS. Best quote:

In his book Living in Space, Dr Stine, who died in 1997, said that Nasa staff at the Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, had used a buoyancy tank that simulates low-gravity conditions to test the possibilities of weightless sex. “It was possible but difficult,” he said, “and was made easier when a third person assisted by holding one of the others in place.”

Say no more!

Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 12:06:03 +0000
From: “Martin Adamson” (spam-protected)
To: (spam-protected)
Subject: Sex in space: thin blue line keeps crews in check

The Times

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 03 2001 
Sex in space: thin blue line keeps crews in check 
BY MARK HENDERSON, SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT 
ASTRONAUTS on the International Space Station (ISS) have been supplied
with DIY pregnancy tests in case the enforced intimacy of space travel
prompts mixed crews to try for the 200-mile-high club. The test sticks
have been included in the station’s medical pack in one of Nasa’s
first admissions that its astronauts might have sex in orbit. 
Although the US space agency has always taken a prudish attitude
towards such activity, the kits are intended for its aftermath: female
astronauts take a pregnancy test before launch and are not allowed to
fly if it is positive. 
Scientists know little about the effects of space travel, particularly
those of weightlessness, on human embryos and any astronaut found to
have become pregnant on board the ISS would almost certainly be
returned to Earth at the earliest opportunity. 
The station’s present crew will not need the kits: all three are male.
The crew they replaced recently, however, included a female flight
engineer, Susan Helms, and the next crew but one will also have a
female member, Peggy Whitson. 
Details of the pregnancy test and directions on how to use it have
emerged from a set of leaked Nasa documents on emergency and medical
procedures obtained by the website SpaceRef.com. The documents provide
astronauts on board the ISS with guidance on dealing with situations
ranging from a crew-mate becoming suicidal or psychotic to diarrhoea,
motion sickness, nosebleeds and dentistry. Nasa would not comment on
the handbook. 
Keith Cowing, editor of SpaceRef.com and a former Nasa scientist, said
that the tests were clearly aimed at detecting conceptions in orbit. 
“Since the crew get a good physical exam before flight, and I doubt
that anyone would deliberately fly while pregnant given our sparse
knowledge of what might happen, one has to assume that this test is to
detect a particular medical condition that developed while the
individual in question was already in space,” he said. 
“There is a rather short list of ways whereby this specific condition
can arise. Nasa never discusses the possibility of sex in space, but
it does not look like they’re worried about what an astronaut might
have done with her husband the night before launch.” 
It remains unclear whether or not the 200-mile-high club already has
any members. There is no suggestion that any astronauts have had sex
on board the ISS since its launch in 1998, but many believe that the
increasing length of time spent on board — the last crew were in space
for 165 days — makes it more likely that such a relationship will
develop. 
Harry Stine, a former Nasa technician, said that the agency had
conducted experiments in the simulated weightlessness of a flotation
tank, but never in space itself. In his book Living in Space, Dr
Stine, who died in 1997, said that Nasa staff at the Marshall Space
Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, had used a buoyancy tank that
simulates low-gravity conditions to test the possibilities of
weightless sex. “It was possible but difficult,” he said, “and was
made easier when a third person assisted by holding one of the others
in place.” 
Nasa has always been coy about the idea of sex involving its
astronauts, but some cosmonauts have been more forthcoming. Valeri
Polyakov, who spent 14 months on Mir between 1992 and 1993, said to
mission control shortly before his return: “No need to say what we are
longing for.” 

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Tags: check, crew, iss, line, nasa, pregnancy, sex, space, test, travel