Human fantasy is full of space stations, orbital cities, and generational spaceships. And all of those have one thing in common. Sex in space. But how will reproduction work in low gravity environments? NASA is now looking for the answers.
A sperm cell fertilizing an egg cell
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Space can be quite the challenge. Many strange things happen to our bodies in space. Astronauts get longer, lose muscle mass and bone density. But we still have big gaps in our understanding of the human body in space. So if we want to become a space-faring species we need to work on that and that includes reproduction in space. That is the reason why NASA recently sent sperm to orbit. The SpaceX Dragon ship brought frozen bull and human sperm to orbit as scientists want to find out how well will sperm do in low gravity environments.
To be precise, this isn’t the first time sperm has been taken into space. In 1988 a German scientist named Englemann sent bull sperm to orbit and he observed how microgravity affects the sperm. The experiments conducted so far show that sperm tends to be more active in microgravity but the eggs tend to be slower. Getting the two to synchronize properly might be an issue leading to problems with impregnation in space.
NASA will now be conducting detailed research on both human and bull sperm. The astronaut scientists will first unfreeze the sperm and activate it. Then they will observe the sperm through a microscope and record it. The samples will later be sent back to Earth where detailed analysis will happen. Obviously, a controlling experiment will take place on Earth at the same time.
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