Content Advisory: This episode includes a candid, science-based discussion of human sexuality, intimacy and reproduction in space. Some topics may not be suitable for younger listeners. Parental discretion is advised.
Before humans can settle down and start families on distant planets, there are a lot of questions to answer. Like, can people even have sex in space? What would reproductive health look like in zero gravity? And what can astronauts teach us about love back on Earth? Dean chats with members of the Advanced SpaceLife Research Institute, Dr. Shawna Pandya, Dr. Simon Dubé, Dr. Alexander Layendecker, and Dr. Begum Mathyk, to find out more.
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Episode Transcript: Looking Up is transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Dean Regas: The Artemis II mission blasted off from Earth on April 1, 2026, and they were on their way on an epic journey around the moon and back again.
Audio Clip: Houston now controlling the flight of Integrity on the Artemis II mission around the moon.
Dean Regas: Once in space, the four astronauts did all of their safety checks and system diagnostics, when it came time to test the Universal Waste Management System, better known to us on the ground as the toilet. Well, let’s just say, Houston, there was a problem.
Audio Clip: We had a controller issue with the toilet when they spun it up. So we got to work through that. That’s going to take maybe a few hours to troubleshoot.
Dean Regas: With no gravity in space, stuff you want to go down needs help going down, and with a jammed hose and broken fan, this waste management failure could have seriously derailed the entire mission.
I mean, they do have a backup plan, which is basically NASA-grade diapers. I’m guessing they’re all wearing a MAG. NASA calls it a maximum absorbency garment. That’s code word for diaper. But those wouldn’t last over a nine-day mission, that’s for sure.
The astronauts trained extensively on all aspects of the mission, especially something mission critical like this. So they quickly fixed the problem and off they went to the moon. But this got me thinking. What other details, minor and major, do astronauts need to tackle in space?
From the studios of Cincinnati Public Radio, I’m your host, Dean Regas, and this is “Looking Up.” The show that takes you deep into the cosmos, or just to the telescope in your backyard. To learn more about what makes this amazing universe of ours so great.
My guests today are preparing astronauts for long-duration space missions at the Advanced SpaceLife Research Institute. They are Dr. Shawna Pandya, Dr. Simon Dubé, Dr. Alexander Layendecker and Dr. Begum Mathyk.
There are just some things about space travel that don’t make it into the movies. In Star Wars, Star Trek and all the other sci-fi films, I can’t remember anyone ever going to the bathroom. It’s just something you don’t really want to depict, but wow, it is vitally important.
Air. You know, priority No. 1. Water. No. 2, food. Definitely up there. But a working toilet that might actually be the most important thing.
All of our past space missions have been limited in both duration and distance. The Artemis II crew went farther from Earth than anyone in history. That’s about 252,756 miles away. But that number pales in comparison to the distance to Mars, which would be 40 million to 50 million miles away, and the distance to the nearest star, which would be like around 25 trillion miles away.
The longest space mission in history was when Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov stayed aboard the Russian space station Mir for 437 days. Yeah, you definitely need a toilet for that long. With low Earth orbit missions like Mir and the International Space Station, the astronauts can come back to Earth right away if there’s some serious problems.
One such side effect is that muscle and bone mass can diminish due to the lack of gravity in space. Astronauts, even after a period of a few months, experience the very early signs of osteoarthritis. But what about missions to Mars and beyond? What kind of things do you have to have self-contained on board for, like, a two-year mission? What kind of health? Both mental and physical things do you have to have worked out?
And if we really want to become a space-faring civilization, what do we need to consider for a mission to the stars? Something that would take multiple generations to complete?
Okay, so just a warning here. We are soon going to discuss the idea of sex in space. Trust me, it will be in the most NASA-friendly and boring manner possible. But I just wanted to give you a heads up, because my guests have thought a lot about it and other things about long-duration space travel.
Dr. Shawna Pandya: Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Shawna Pandya. I am the chief of space medicine at ASRI, the Advanced SpaceLife Research Institute.
Dr. Simon Dubé: Hi. My name is Simon Dubé, affiliate professor in the Department of Psychology at UQAM in Montreal and the chief of innovation and development at ASRI.
Dr. Alexander Layendecker: Hi, my name is Dr. Alexander Layendecker. I am the founder and director of the Advanced SpaceLife Research Institute, which is the world’s first full-spectrum academic institution for studying human sexuality and reproduction factors in off-world environments.
Dr. Begum Mathyk: I’m Dr. Begum. I’m an obstetrician and gynecologist and has a research interest in reproductive health in space.
Dean Regas: Well, thank you all for joining me today. I’ve been noticing you all are at different parts of the world. Alex, how did you get this team together and what was the big plan here to get all these specialists together for this project?
Dr. Alexander Layendecker: So how ASRI came to be as an institution, I did a Ph.D. in human sexuality over 15 years ago that focused on human sexuality and reproduction factors in off-world environments. Part of what came out of the dissertation that I was writing at the time was that the solution to these issues would be a private nonprofit research institute that could specifically focus on the full spectrum of issues in this area.
I advocated for this for the last roughly 15 years. And finally, a few years ago, kind of had a moment where we decided, all right, well, I guess we’ll do it ourselves. That was how ASRI got founded as an institution. And along the way, I’d run into other amazing researchers who I asked to join this team. So we have researchers as part of our team from literally around the world.
Dean Regas: So I’ve interviewed a few astronauts for the podcast, and I always ask them about the hazards of space travel. And you probably know this too, they generally downplay anything, you know, in typical astronaut fashion, but what do you see as some of the biggest dangers for long-duration space missions? For health?
Dr. Shawna Pandya: Yeah, sure. I can jump into that one.
Dr. Shawna Pandya: So if you could name me any bodily system, I could guarantee there’s an effect, or bones lose density. Our muscles lose mass, our fluids shift upwards. That has consequences for our cardiovascular systems. Even how we taste and smell and perceive it has consequences for our central nervous systems.
It puts pressure on the backs of our eyes and can lead to vision shifts. And that’s still considered a showstopper for Mars. And that’s not to dissuade anyone or scare anyone from pursuing long-duration spaceflight, but it’s simply to recognize, quantify and mitigate the risk.
Dean Regas: Well, and then this ties into your main focus. It seems like for the group is reproductive health. And so, Simon, what are your main areas of study right now?
Dr. Simon Dubé: There’s so many areas of study. And as we have built an amazing roadmap that’s very comprehensive, but I focus more on the psychosocial aspects, everything that has to do with sexuality, intimacy and reproduction in space. Because how I like to put it is reproduction is not just about producing viable offspring, and actually producing viable offspring is not just about biology.
So how we meet, how we fall in love, how we deal with heartbreaks, how we cope with it, how we work together in very complex, harsh environments with limited number of individuals that you work and live together 24/7. And that you depend on.
So, you can think of everything as to do with how we build relationship with one another. Having sex in space, raising children and all the messiness in between and how we cope and deal with it as a team. So, a very broad umbrella, but we’ve effectively now moved from, from theory and reviews to empirical research on humans.
Dean Regas: Okay. To me, this is the big question. I’m curious. I’m a little scared to know and ask, but how are you testing sex in space? You can bring my imagination back to earth here.
Dr. Shawna Pandya: Yeah. We can, you know, bring us back down to terra firma. And before we let our imaginations join the 250-mile high club. This is the most common reaction that we get, you know, thinking, “Tell us all about the zero-G birds and bees.” And there’s a lot more to it.
It’s not just the physical act of sex in space. It’s the attraction, the arousal. What do the gametes do? Are they as viable if you can have a viable pregnancy? How does that embryo implant? Is it the same as on Earth? Is there an increased risk of an ectopic pregnancy if you get past that stage? How does the in utero development go? If you get to that, what is zero-G or reduced-gravity labor and delivery like?
1 G labor and delivery is terrifying enough. Even the quote-unquote lowest-risk pregnancies can go sideways in a second. Now imagine doing that in this reduced-gravity, high-risk, a low-resource environment.
Dean Regas: Has anyone, as far as, you know, had sex in space to date?
Dr. Shawna Pandya: Yes, yes. It’s, you know, it, Japanese medaka fish. So.
Dr. Alexander Layendecker: Shawna always does this. She always had me going there.
Dr. Shawna Pandya: Not to be overly salacious, but there, yes. This goes back to what has happened in space so far. Japanese medaka fish have been caught on camera successfully mating. There have been successful salamander studies of copulation, as well as birth and viable offspring. If you’re going to be boring and stick to humans, the official party line is no one has had sex in space. So, there is no record of that.
If you’re going to be boring and stick to humans, the official party line is no one has had sex in space. So, there is no record of that.Dr. Shawna Pandya, ASRI
Dean Regas: But, so then we bring Simon in here. So how do we do, how do we simulate this?
Dr. Simon Dubé: Yeah, exactly. We actually do studies on humans. And what we do is we use analog research environment that mimics key aspects of life in space.
So for example, desert and volcanoes and Arctic and Antarctic circles, these very remote and extreme environments where we send the crews and missions and scientists to, to run experiments and for example, how we study it with the WB, the world’s biggest analog, the largest space simulation mission ever conducted. It was a two-week mission.
And how we effectively study it is very similar to how we do studies in general in human psychology is through questionnaires. So for example, they were asked questions about their arousal, their desire, their capabilities, to have orgasm as well as their sexual behavior. And that allowed us to demonstrate and show that there’s a mission-induced effect on human sexual functioning and behavior.
Dean Regas: Wow. So, I’m trying to picture, you know, 2030s, 2040s, beyond, you know, what these space missions are going to look like and what the crews are going to look like for these long-duration flights. What would be the better dynamic?
Dr. Shawna Pandya: So, there is some data on what types of crews fare best in austere environments and in long-duration spaceflight. And believe it or not, it’s actually mixed-gender crews. And so oftentimes you’ll hear, you know, send just all women, send all men. But if you’re looking at overall crew performance and crew cohesion, you actually want the mixed-gender crew. And then similarly, there’s also data to suggest that crews with more access to privacy within their crew quarters actually fare better performance-wise.
Dr. Alexander Layendecker: Well, and sort of to tag on to what Shawna and Simon were, were both saying. What we tend to concern ourselves with is how do we help provide data that is going to optimize crews and missions going forward? Because, you know, sexuality is sort of the really big elephant in the room that has gone unaddressed for so long. They have professional career astronauts who have been training for these missions their entire lives. They’re going up for days or at most, weeks and months at a time. But they are expected to adhere to strict protocols, and can be expected to, you know, perform in a certain way.
That dynamic is going to change significantly once we start sending more people into space, once we start sending settlers and families. So, when you talk about microsocieties, which is what a crew really is, like all societies, you’re going to have issues and conflicts. And there is the potential for that society to break down.
So what happens if you have a married couple that is on this very, very long journey and there is infidelity? A couple breaks up. There is conflict, jealousy, other things that could ultimately lead to, like, we hope that it doesn’t end up this way, but absolutely. Is it a possibility these things could lead to physical violence, could lead to mission failure?
Dean Regas: Well, and when I try to advocate for NASA, I always give them the line, like for every dollar we spent for NASA, it comes back at $7 of a industry and jobs and that kind of stuff. So this is the big one for you guys is are there any things that you’re learning about sex in space that can translate to us down here on Earth? I mean, I, we need all the help we can get down here. So what do you got for us?
Dr. Simon Dubé: Absolutely. Seriously, this is one of the component that’s often underestimated is the bidirectional relationship between. Okay, we’re not just doing science to go into space. We’re actually doing science in space because it helps us on Earth.
And when it comes to human sexuality and intimacy and reproduction, I’ll just speak for the relational components. Space, like technology, doesn’t give you any chance. You got to get it right. And because you got to get it right, you need to think about what would be the best sexual, gender intimacy, reproduction, and relationship dynamics that you would want to see as humans in these extreme environments.
And what are the effects of these environments on these components, these essential components of human life? And because you’re studying both the effects, you’re better understanding every situation that has to do with stress and confinement, for example, or distance relationship, think COVID-19, think working at home, think, going for work trips, and being a long-distance relationship. All of this information can be, you can learn more about it in space, but also space forces youth to think, how can we be our best erotic selves? And what does it takes to operate, optimize human intimacy and sexuality and relationship in these environments?
Dr. Alexander Layendecker: Yeah. And Simon has hit it on the nail because oftentimes when people hear about our work, they say, “Oh, you mean you’re making a zero-G sex dungeon?” And we say, “No, that’s not it at all.” It’s more the lessons.
It’s not just space in which you have long-distance, long-duration relationships. This is equally relevant to military deployments, and couples who have to, you know, live through that, who have to build a family through that, who have to survive crises together, who have to survive hardship together.
So what happens when there’s a circumstance in which you have no control, whether, you know, it’s death of a loved one back on Earth, death of a loved one back home. When you’re off on a long-distance deployment or expedition, all of these lessons learned have translational, translational value.
Dr. Begum Mathyk: And I would like to add on the reproduction part because on Earth also we experience, like, if you’re, you know, seeing patients, there is anxiety, there is, like, its impact on their relationship dynamics, intimacy and everything. So, I think understanding the impact of how the couples are cooperating together, how they understand each other, what is their expectations and their intimacy and their reproductive desire is also important not only for space, but also for ours as well.
Dean Regas: Well, I got to say, this is not a topic that I thought that I would ever cover on this podcast. It’s like I could talk about going to the bathroom in space, but this, I hope that I held it together and asked mature questions and kept things above board. But thank you guys so much for taking the time for this.
Dr. Shawna Pandya: This has been fantastic. This is something that’s really close to all of our hearts. This is something that we talk about all the time. We could go on for hours. So, you know, for anyone who is interested in learning more about our work at ASRI, you know, just check us out at asri.space.
We’re always looking for good, talented people who care about the science, doing so ethically and thinking about the repercussions of what this means to create a permanent off-world multiplanetary species, as well as the implications for humans back on Earth.
Dean Regas: So what do you think? Should we take earthbound relationship advice from these space researchers? I mean, they’ve definitely considered a lot of unique scenarios. Like you’re trapped on a spacecraft for 50 years. What’s dating like? What’s parenting like? What if you have to break up?
I don’t know, this stuff is fun to think about, but to be honest, it’s kind of stressing me out. And I’m not saying this as a commitment-averse human, but what would it be like to spend the majority of your life with the same 12 to 20 people? Flying to a distant destination, possibly never coming home again? And what? Oh my gosh, what if the toilet breaks.
Looking up with Dean Regas is a production of Cincinnati Public Radio. Kevin Reynolds and I created the podcast in 2017. Ella Rowen and Carlos Lopez Cornu produce and edit our show and have successfully negotiated for a private bathroom here at the Looking Up Studios. Nice.
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