Comment & Debate
“Outer-space sex carries complications.” MSNBC. 2009: “The issue of what happens after sex is, if anything, more crucial for those concerned about future generations of spacefarers. The animal studies conducted so far indicate that the “absence of gravity loading would cause all kinds of problems” for fetal development, Logan said.
For example, Russian studies with pregnant rats showed a 13 to 17 percent arrest in the development of nearly every area of the fetal skeleton in zero-G, he said. Logan also noted that the proper formation of neural connections — a process that continues even after birth — requires movement under gravity loading. Immune functions are also compromised in microgravity.
Logan isn’t worried so much about the early weeks of pregnancy, but he said studies have shown that gravity should play a significant role for human fetuses after about 26 weeks of gestation.
‘This has significant implications for the colonization of the solar system,’ he said. Multigenerational life might be impossible without at least some gravity.”