Sex in space? Babies born on other planets could be 'vastly different'

If colonization on Mars does get real for humanity, there will be one important frontier to face – Sex.

During a webcast event in Washington, D.C, Kris Lehnhardt, an assistant professor in the department of emergency medicine at GW’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences stated that the topic of sex in space is ‘a real concern’.  It is believed that there are many things that need to be learnt about human space flight, including its effects on biology and nutrition.

Lehnhardt also added, “This is something that we, frankly, have never studied dramatically, because it's not been relevant to date. But if we want to become a spacefaring species and we want to live in space permanently, this is a crucial issue that we have to address that just has not been fully studied yet.” At this moment, even scientists cannot be too sure as to what would happen if human beings were to reproduce in space, or give birth in a space environment.

Early this year, researchers in Japan revealed that they had successfully used freeze-dried mouse sperm that had lived on the International Space Station for nine months to birth healthy pups. Space points out that those results suggest that the relatively high levels of radiation experienced in space don't pose an insurmountable barrier to reproduction.