The late former NASA technician Harry Stein also revealed in his monograph "Living in Space" that NASA employees worked at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama An inflatable water tank was selected to simulate a low gravity state and verify the possibility of male and female pregnancy in a weightless state. "It is possible to conceive in space, but it is very difficult to do. A third person is needed to help fix the position of one of the people."
In fact, in space, the blood in the human body will be redistributed and mainly concentrated in the Near the heart, this will make the person's torso enlarge and the legs and feet become thinner, making it look swollen and unattractive. At the same time, this situation can easily lead to dehydration. Severe dehydration is more likely to occur if lovers focus on sex. Another thing astronauts may not say is that the size of the penis may change slightly due to low blood pressure. Another problem is the lack of air convection in space. During pregnancy, the air around the body that has become moist due to rising temperature is close to the surface of the body, just like a hot blanket wrapped around the body. Therefore, giving birth to new human life in space feels "hotter" and "wetter" than on earth.
Regarding the topic of whether humans can get pregnant in space, my personal opinion is that it is generally not possible, but as long as the human body has a suitable living environment, such as an artificial environment in a space capsule or spaceship , and can take off the spacesuit for about 20 minutes, then a woman can become pregnant. Why do you say this? Because:
Normally speaking, humans cannot survive in the natural environment of space. Therefore, humans cannot have normal pregnancies in space. However, if humans build a space capsule in space, and artificially create an environment corresponding to the earth in the space capsule, or create an artificial environment suitable for human survival in the spaceship, the condition is that the spacesuit can be taken off for 20 minutes. , women can get pregnant in the special environment mentioned above in space.
Although the environment in space is a phenomenon of weightlessness, the survival function of the human body is a solidified physiological phenomenon. As long as the living environment is suitable, any physiological activity of the human body can be displayed. However, the current space technology in the scientific community can only sustain the human body in space for about 200 days, and it takes about 300 days for a woman to give birth after 10 months of pregnancy. Therefore, humans have not yet conducted experimental projects on female pregnancy and childbirth in space, and it is impossible to obtain witness cases of the entire process of female pregnancy and childbirth in space. The above views are just my personal feasibility analysis and conjecture.
In 2016, my country launched the Shijian-10 scientific experimental satellite, which brought more than 6,000 mouse embryos into space, successfully realizing the development of early mouse embryos in space. Of course, it is still unknown whether the experimental results can be applied to humans.
Mice are genetically very similar to humans, and they are also mammals. The early embryonic development rules are similar to those of humans. Embryonic development experiments using mice as research subjects can probably explain the development of human embryos. Development in space will likely encounter problems. At the same time, childbirth in space will also be a technology that humans who embark on deep space travel in the future must master. Since the birth of manned spaceflight, the development rules of embryos in space have been an important research content. Before our country, scientists from the United States and Japan had conducted research on the embryonic development of space mammals. They took out the sperm of mice in a microgravity environment and sent it to space for storage in a freezing device for 9 months. After returning to Earth, it was Early embryos cultured in vitro were introduced into surrogate mice. Although the sperm of these mice suffered some damage, they eventually gave birth to fully functional mice, confirming that mammalian fertilized eggs can withstand space radiation for a long time; the United States also Similar experiments were conducted and found that mammalian fertilized eggs stopped dividing early in development. There are still many scientific problems that need to be solved urgently about reproductive behavior in space.
Mammalian reproduction begins with the formation of germ cells. The high radiation environment in space will cause abnormal formation of germ cells, leading to DNA damage, and the offspring formed by their combination will also have certain diseases. Gene defects, and according to mouse experiments, female mice that have flown in space for 12 to 15 days will have the corpus luteum completely missing or only a very small part remaining. In the reproductive process of mammals, the corpus luteum plays an important role, that is, The right hormones are released at the right time to maintain pregnancy in mammals. In another NASA experiment, scientists sent mouse sperm into space, used mixed reagents to simulate egg cells, and mixed them with sperm. They found that under the induction of the reagent, the sperm's morphology underwent some changes and was able to swim. However, no experiment has ever been conducted on the entire process of mammals in space, from the formation of reproductive cells to childbirth. It is not yet known whether mammals can give birth in space. In an experiment in the former Soviet Union in the 1970s, male and female mice were sent into space together and found that they either refused to mate or were unable to form fertilized eggs.
All these mammalian space reproduction experiments can confirm that the space environment does have an impact on the reproductive behavior of mammals. Space has the characteristics of microgravity and high cosmic radiation, which may be factors affecting biological development. Scientists working with NASA have also proposed a slightly more radical plan to launch human sperm and eggs into space to observe the entire process of sperm-egg union. Biological reproduction involves complex processes, which are far beyond what can be understood through current animal experiments. Current research on humans is mostly focused on the health effects on the human body in space. NASA conducts the most manned spaceflights, so it has collected a large amount of human body data, which also confirms that the internal and external aspects of the human body are affected in space. The influence of genes is mainly concentrated on the regulation of gene expression, but this is also because modern manned spaceflights last less than two years, and there have not been manned flights for several years or more than ten years.
Although there is not yet, there will almost certainly be research on human fertility in space in the future. A certain European country plans to send pregnant women to space to give birth in space, but this should not be possible in a short period of time. Rockets The launch will be violently shaken and overweight, which will cause untold harm to pregnant women, and there is a lack of medical equipment needed to assist childbirth in space. In any case, research on human fertility in space still has a long way to go.
As we all know, the key point of this problem is that the space environment is weightless, so we would think that sperm enters the female body according to Newton's law, but this is not the case.
When the sperm comes out of the male genitals, it first enters the female vagina. It solidifies and liquefies and then swims. When it swims into the fallopian tube, it meets the egg cell, and then combines to form a fertilized egg. The fallopian tube shrinks and fertilization occurs. The egg will move forward and enter the lining of the uterus. And fixed. Even if the sperm has completely entered the mother's body. Therefore, it is useless for everyone to do handstand movements in order to conceive.
From a purely physical perspective, conception should not be a problem under space conditions. It may be more conducive to pregnancy if the appropriate posture is adopted. Of course, the premise is that there cannot be a thick space suit between the two.
With the development of human aerospace technology, human beings will inevitably move into space beyond the earth. More and more people will enter space, and the time they stay in space will also continue to increase. Then, a question will inevitably arise on the way forward for mankind - can humans give birth in a microgravity environment?
Although astronauts have not yet conducted experiments in space, scientists have conducted experiments using animals. Biologists from Mount Saint Vincent University in Canada conducted experiments using zebrafish. They placed fertilized zebrafish eggs in a microgravity container and cultured them. They found that the larvae hatched from the fertilized eggs had many defects and matured within a few months. Died in infancy.
In 2010, NASA sent mice into space and found that they all had symptoms of ovarian atrophy in varying degrees.
These experiments show that microgravity has adverse effects on the reproduction and development of animals, and it is believed that it also has adverse effects on humans. In addition, scientists speculate that the microgravity environment will also affect the combination of sperm and eggs, making it difficult for sperm to move, and may even cause ectopic pregnancy.
However, there is still good news. Female astronauts who have been in space have not had their fertility affected by microgravity. my country's first female astronaut Liu Yang entered space on Shenzhou 9 on June 16, 2012. Two years later, in August 2014, Liu Yang successfully gave birth and became a mother. In addition, Tereshkova, humanity's first female astronaut, also successfully gave birth to a "healthy" girl.
It can be seen that a short-term microgravity environment will not cause damage to human reproductive capabilities. However, there is still a long way to go before humans can fully engage in human-creation activities in space.
The answer is yes. Can get pregnant.
First, let’s look at the mechanism and necessary conditions for pregnancy: the basic conditions are healthy men and women, and sexual mating mechanisms. All of this can be done
At present, it seems that it is not possible. All astronauts are not allowed to have sex while performing orbital missions. Astronauts currently on missions on the International Space Station also adhere to this rule, so pregnancy in space is currently not possible.
The reason is also very simple. Cosmic rays have a great impact on the development of the fetus. In addition to cosmic rays, the problem of weightlessness and radiation in outer space can cause mutations in the fetus in minutes. It can be said that it is 100% may not develop normally.
But we have no way to avoid this problem, such as the problem of weightlessness. The development of embryos in a weightless environment is being tested on animals. The results are not ideal, and mutations may occur. After all, humans have evolved in the earth's gravity environment for tens of millions of years, and if they suddenly become a weightless environment, something will definitely go wrong.
In addition, there is the issue of cosmic rays. Radiation from the sun, galactic cosmic rays, etc. are all colonized. Even healthy astronauts have to avoid solar storms, let alone embryos. period of life.
I remember reading a piece of popular science knowledge before that said that if people lived on the moon, a man and a woman would not get pregnant if they had sex. It was said that the moon is a natural contraceptive place. I never understood what it meant. Now, Thinking about it, I feel that that statement is completely unreasonable. I don’t know who said it first and why.
The weightless environment in space is still different from that on the moon. After all, there is still gravity on the moon, but it is smaller than that on the earth. In the weightless environment of space, people have almost no gravity at all. They can be on the space station It floats around, so in such an environment, if a man has a relationship with a woman of childbearing age, will the woman get pregnant?
I would say, why not? Is there any reason not to get pregnant? Are there any conditions and phenomena that prevent women from getting pregnant? Basically no, although in the space environment, the human body loses gravity. But as long as the sperm are discharged into the female's reproductive organs, the sperm will naturally look for eggs in the woman. They will enter the woman's uterus along the body fluids, looking for eggs in every corner of the uterus, and even in the fallopian tube. As long as they find them, After fertilizing the egg, the sperm penetrates into the egg, and a fertilized egg is quickly formed. Then the fertilized egg comes to the uterus, completes implantation, and the woman becomes pregnant. Are there any conditions that prevent these things from happening? No! If not. Of course women can get pregnant.
Some people may say that it is not easy for men and women to have sex in the weightless environment of space, because without the gravity of the earth, when two people make love together, their bodies will I want to say that there is nothing troublesome about being separated by a collision. On earth, we can also complete the sex action while standing. When doing the action while standing, we are not separated by a long distance due to the impact, right? ? Especially when two people hug each other, it is impossible for them to be ejected far away due to the impact of each other. Therefore, even in space, it is very easy to complete sex. It is not difficult for a man to ejaculate sperm into a woman’s body. There will be no obstacles for sperm to find eggs in a woman's body, so love and pregnancy in space can be completed, and of course they can be carried out. Let's wait and see which country's astronaut couple will become such The first pair in terms of it.
I think practice is the only criterion for testing truth. Human beings cannot stay on the earth forever, so related experiments are very important. When giving birth to offspring in space, we must consider the space environment such as genetic mutation and weightlessness. For the impact on future generations, experiments should be conducted on animals first, and necessary radiation protection and even rotational acceleration to simulate gravity measures should be taken. In addition, the preparation of food in the space environment must also be considered, and verification by other mammals is needed. After all, this is not It's just as simple as having sex, but it's a very serious issue about the evolution of human beings from earthly creatures to cosmic creatures - Boss, please have another bottle of Erguotou!