If humans want to really make a go at leaving Earth and living in space or on other planets, we’re going to have to figure out a lot of things: spaceships, food supplies, fuel, how to keep everybody from killing one another.
But one thing seems to be frequently left out of the picture, when it comes to distant space travel research: reproduction. It turns out we know very, very little about what pregnancy in space might look like, or whether it’s even possible at all.
Guests
- Maggie Koerth-Baker: senior science writer at FiveThirtyEight
- Kim Stanley Robinson: science fiction author of the Mars trilogy, The Years of Rice and Salt, 2312, Aurora and others, including a new book Red Moon.
- Anicca Harriot: PhD student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, advocate for STEM outreach
Further Reading
- Space Sex is Serious Business
- Microgravity alters protein phosphorylation changes during initiation of sea urchin sperm motility.
- Mammalian Development in Space
- Sea Urchin Eggs under Microgravity Conditions
- Pilot and astronaut offspring: possible G-force effects on human sex ratio.
- Sex Ratio Shift in Offspring of Male Fixed-Wing Naval Aviation Officers
- Orbital Spaceflight During Pregnancy Shapes Function of Mammalian Vestibular System
- Physiology of a Microgravity Environment Selected Contribution: Effects of spaceflight during pregnancy on labor and birth at 1 G
- Effects of Gravity, Microgravity or Microgravity Simulation on Early Mammalian Development
- What Going to Mars Will Do to Our Bodies
Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.
If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.
And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! Head to www.flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help.
That’s all for this future, come back next time and we’ll travel to a new one.
Flash Forward is a critically acclaimed podcast about the future.
In each episode, host Rose Eveleth takes on a possible (or not so possible) future scenario — everything from the existence of artificial wombs, to what would happen if space pirates dragged a second moon to Earth. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Could there ever be a black market for fecal transplants? (Complicated, it wouldn’t, and yes, respectively, in case you’re curious.) By combining audio drama and deep reporting, Flash Forward gives listeners an original and unique window into the future, how likely different scenarios might be, and how to prepare for what might come.
