Skip to main content

‘You need things like straps’ when it comes to sex in space, says Neil deGrasse Tyson

neil degrasse tyson sex in space
Image used with permission by copyright holder
What requires straps, grim determination, and two consenting individuals? Sex in space, of course, which is a whole lot trickier than you’d think. As we continually make advances in the realm of space travel, we consider how the human race might one day thrive in a zero-gravity environment. Naturally, procreation is a very important consideration; one that has yet to be addressed. But thankfully, celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has lent his expertise to the subject, noting, “You need things like straps” in order to have a successful romp in the hay when you’re away from planet Earth.

Sex in Space: Fan Questions | StarTalk

“Everything is different when you are having sex in a weightless environment,” Tyson explained. And seeing as we already have whiskey glasses that allow you to get buzzed and set the mood miles above our atmosphere, we’re clearly ready to have conversations on how to fornicate when you and your partner are adrift.

Tyson notes the problem with potential foreplay, including bouncing off your partner when trying to get close. While this does occur to some of us on Earth, it is usually for entirely different reasons.

So what’s the solution? “Bring a lot of leather belts. Keep things strapped down and you’ll be just fine,” the space sexpert said. And for added punch, he joked, “There are probably some people who are fully equipped with this anyway.”

Of course, none of NASA’s astronauts will be taking Tyson’s advice to heart anytime soon. The space agency has very strict rules about this sort of hanky panky while on the job, requiring that their employees maintain “professional standards” and “relationships of trust” whenever they’re in space. For the time being, Tyson’s sexy theoretical scenarios must be put aside.

So while there are no members of the million mile high club just yet, it may be something to consider much more seriously in the not so distant future. Start stocking up on straps, friends. Now you even have an excuse for them.

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
NASA gives green light to mission to send car-sized drone to Saturn moon
An artist's impression of NASA's Dragonfly drone.

NASA’s Mars helicopter mission is now well and truly over, but following in its footsteps is an even more complex flying machine that's heading for Saturn’s largest moon.

The space agency on Tuesday gave the green light to the Dragonfly drone mission to Titan. The announcement means the design of the eight-rotor aircraft can now move toward completion, followed by construction and a testing regime to confirm the operability of the machine and its science instruments.

Read more
Hubble discovers over 1,000 new asteroids thanks to photobombing
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158 looks like someone took a white marking pen to it. In reality it is a combination of time exposures of a foreground asteroid moving through Hubble’s field of view, photobombing the observation of the galaxy. Several exposures of the galaxy were taken, which is evidenced by the dashed pattern.

The Hubble Space Telescope is most famous for taking images of far-off galaxies, but it is also useful for studying objects right here in our own solar system. Recently, researchers have gotten creative and found a way to use Hubble data to detect previously unknown asteroids that are mostly located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The researchers discovered an incredible 1,031 new asteroids, many of them small and difficult to detect with several hundred of them less than a kilometer in size. To identify the asteroids, the researchers combed through a total of 37,000 Hubble images taken over a 19-year time period, identifying the tell-tale trail of asteroids zipping past Hubble's camera.

Read more
Biggest stellar black hole to date discovered in our galaxy
Astronomers have found the most massive stellar black hole in our galaxy, thanks to the wobbling motion it induces on a companion star. This artist’s impression shows the orbits of both the star and the black hole, dubbed Gaia BH3, around their common centre of mass. This wobbling was measured over several years with the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. Additional data from other telescopes, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, confirmed that the mass of this black hole is 33 times that of our Sun. The chemical composition of the companion star suggests that the black hole was formed after the collapse of a massive star with very few heavy elements, or metals, as predicted by theory.

Black holes generally come in two sizes: big and really big. As they are so dense, they are measured in terms of mass rather than size, and astronomers call these two groups of stellar mass black holes (as in, equivalent to the mass of the sun) and supermassive black holes. Why there are hardly any intermediate-mass black holes is an ongoing question in astronomy research, and the most massive stellar mass black holes known in our galaxy tend to be up to 20 times the mass of the sun. Recently, though, astronomers have discovered a much larger stellar mass black hole that weighs 33 times the mass of the sun.

Not only is this new discovery the most massive stellar black hole discovered in our galaxy to date but it is also surprisingly close to us. Located just 2,000 light-years away, it is one of the closest known black holes to Earth.

Read more