I have a friend who works for NASA. He’s pretty highly placed. He says that if one were to be allowed to view the tapes of numerous flights, one would find that occasionally a camera would “malfunction” in a secluded area (or as secluded as one can get). A repair team would “fix” it. The repair team was a male/female pair of astronauts. The “repairs” usually took 45 minutes to an hour. The repair team was quite happy after successfully “repairing” the camera.
I find the scenario of malfunctioning cameras and repair crews to be too contrived to be believable. Are the shuttle bathrooms monitored by cameras? Why not just do it there like most Mile High Clubbers?
Has anyone considered the possibility of using one of those planes that go up real high and then freefall to simulate the weightlessness in space? I realize it only lasts for a matter of seconds, but, if you were sufficiently, er, prepared before entering free fall, it might be enough to get the gist.
Mike Jittlov, special effects wizard (who made The Wizard of Space and Time once made a short where he and a woman entered a “zero gravity chamber” . The Zero G scenes actually were shot on a “zero g” parabolic trajectory “Vomit Comet” plane. Jittlov explained at a screening of the films that there was a lot of Insteresting Footage from those takes that they really couldn’t use in his film.
A few years ago there was a company that specialized in basically being a flying sex taxi, so that passengers could join the Mile High Club. I’m sure they considered (or at least talked about ) the idea of zero G sex. But I understand that those parabolic trajectories are REALLY hard on a plane.
First off, I have never been able to maintain so much as an Aloe Vera plant and, while I’m no Bill Clinton, I’m at least theoretically capable of joining the stardrive section with the saucer section. In other words, what the hell does maintaining plant growth have to do with knocking anti-grav boots?
Maybe more to the point, why wouldn’t people be able to have sex in space? Is there some reason a man wouldn’t be able to get an erection? Simple penetration?— one’s partner just keeps floating away?
Is the real question one of conception?
They needn’t be. Here’s a link to a site selling zero-G airplane rides in a B-727. You get something like 25 seconds of zero-G and then a 1.8-G pullout. That’s harder on a plane than straight and level flying, but well within what it’s built for.
I wasn’t saying that they exceeded the plane’s capability, but at a lecture on such flights I was told that, after a series of loops, the “Vomit Comet” has to go in for heavy servicing. It’s not like flying from New York to Atlanta.
What secluded areas?
The space station is basically made up of large tubes, like the lab that was just added recently. A camera mounted at the end covers the entire inside of the tube within its view. That was pretty clear in recent photos of the inside of the space station. I can’t see where there are any secluded areas at all, except deliberately created ones like the ‘lavatory’. Or storage areas, and space is at such a premium that these are all as small as possible – hardly room for 2 active people.
A few years back the Russian space agency announced a “honeymoon special” whereby, for a mere $40 million, they’d take you and your blushing bride to the space station and then, presumably, look the other way. Did anyone ever take them up on the offer?
