These are the two unsaid taboos of space travel.
With Japan and China gearing up to explore and potentially colonize the moon, space and science administrations are just beginning to tackle the questions that need to be answered sooner or later. Questions like ‘what should we do if somebody dies in space?‘ and ‘what should we do about sex?‘
We have been fortunate in the half-century of space travel that nobody has died while in space. The loss of 17 astronauts by NASA (3 on Apollo 1, 7 on Challenger and 7 on Columbia), while tragic, did not require a surviving crew to return with a body. And how about sex? On a 3-year mission to Mars the crew would undoubtedly have some urge to hula. Heck, even if we sent only one gender there could be a problem with sex, or lack thereof.