Who was the first astronaut, everyone knows. Actually, we are celebrating the flight of the first Soviet man today. And where did the first cosmic love happen? Also in the USSR.
The world’s first woman-cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 married the Soviet cosmonaut Adrian Nikolaev, who at that time was also the first – the first to leave the space chair and swim in zero gravity (inside the ship) and the first to spend four days in orbit.
It is not surprising that even in those romantic times, many considered this marriage dynastic – based not on love, but on professional and political interests. Khrushchev personally captured the young. And Khrushchev, they used to say, was pushed by Soviet doctors who wanted to study passion as they studied the characteristics of human organisms in zero gravity.
Tereshkova and Nikolaev
Organisms did not disappoint: a year later, a couple of Nikolaev and Tereshkova had a daughter. Of course, it was conceived on earth, but no cosmic overloads, radiation, and other unknown factors that had time to act on the parents did not affect the child’s health. Their girl grew up, graduated with honors from school and medical school, got married, gave birth to a son herself … That is, there were no “delayed” consequences.
What is interesting: both Svetlana Savitskaya (the second woman-cosmonaut, the first woman to go into outer space), and Elena Kondakova (the third woman in space, but the first for the duration of their stay there – 179 days) – all of them gave birth to healthy children. And in this regard, we can assume that we surpassed America: their astronauts did not give birth. NASA recommends that astronauts donate sperm and eggs to a cryostorage before the flight … But either no one follows the recommendations, or they don’t help.
Perhaps it is precisely the issues of preserving reproductive health that explain the strange fact that in the entire history of the cosmonautics of the USSR (Russia) only four women were sent into space , and the United States – almost fifty.
America’s experience
Mark Lee and Jen Davis
Margaret Seddon and Robert Gibson – the only American couple of astronauts, which is usually referred to in Runet. Together, they never flew, so they could not participate in sex experiments in space. But even in earthly life they have no children.
In the mid-80s of the last century, a very tenacious newspaper “duck” was launched stating that the astronaut spouses Judith Reznik and Robert Mullane had sex in orbit under the supervision of sensors. In fact, these two were neither spouses nor lovers, and they did not precisely engage in sex under supervision. And without observation … They claimed that it was even technically impossible. However, then, in the mid-80s, NASA introduced a strict rule prohibiting spouses from flying together.
Mark Lee and Jen Davis met in preparation for the space shuttle flight in 1991. Fell in love with each other at once, but kept the relationship secret until they were convinced that the preparation of the mission was already at a stage when the participants were difficult to replace. In September 1992, Lee and Davis became the first couple to fly into space.
NASA denies having sex in space. But he admits that the mission of the spouses really was to study the reproductive capabilities of terrestrial organisms in outer space. More specifically: Lee and Davis in orbit engaged in the fertilization of frog eggs. Not a single tadpole has hatched.
Space breeding research has so far been underfunded. Yes, and not paramount … But now, when it comes not only to pure science, but also to business (that is, space tourism and the colonization of Mars), things have moved off the ground. All the achievements of the USSR and the USA from the 60s to our time do not inspire great optimism. Although in this regard, we also caught up with and overtook America: our rats in space became pregnant back in 1979. But there were problems with bearing.
Unearthly sex
Of course, officially the results of the Soviet experiment with rats were recognized as disappointing:
- Cosmic radiation undoubtedly damages the structure of DNA and leads to unpredictable mutations. And the sex glands are the most sensitive to the effects of radiation. This largely explains the total sterility of American astronauts.
- The lack of gravity affects the distribution of hormones in the body – so that estrogen and testosterone do not reach the right organs in the right doses.
- Due to weightlessness, blood vessels in the lower body are disturbed – hence the problems with erection.
- With the leakage and distribution of seminal fluid under zero gravity, everything is not clear either: how to keep it in the female body when it has already left the male? And will the sperm swim to the egg in the absence of gravity?
- The placenta, for unexplained reasons, is not formed yet – therefore, pregnancy is terminated in the early stages.
But two rats nevertheless became pregnant! Rats are not people for you: they will not do what they do not want for money or for an idea. And this means that purely technically there, in space, the milky feeding want and can make love. And this is encouraging.