A strange new type of star referred to by scientists as an “old smoker” has been discovered after a years-long astronomical study. 

According to four different studies recently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, these recently discovered stellar objects are essentially really large and very old stars that emit puffs of what appears to be smoke and dust after many decades of inactivity. 

These stars were discovered using a powerful giant telescope located deep in the mountains of Chile. Lead author of one study and co-author of the other three, Phillip Lucas, said that thus far, scientists are not completely sure what creates this effect in the old smoker stars. 

“Everything we have been able to learn about them suggests that this is a case of stars throwing off puffs of smoke—for reasons that we don’t fully understand,” Lucas said. “We weren’t sure if these stars were protostars starting an eruption, or recovering from a dip in brightness caused by a disc or shell of dust in front of the star — or if they were older giant stars throwing off matter in the late stages of their life,” Lucas said

Originally the studies were focused at finding newborn stars, oftentimes surrounded by dust and gasses making them hard to see. This is why the VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope) in Chile, capable of seeing infrared light, was used to scan the skies for the stars other telescopes would not be able to see. As Dr. Zhen Guo, Fondecyt Postdoc Fellow at the University of Valparaiso in Chile and lead author of two studies explained, these newborn stars often help to form new solar systems over time. 

“Our main aim was to find rarely-seen newborn stars, also called protostars, while they are undergoing a great outburst that can last for months, years, or even decades,” Guo said. “These outbursts happen in the slowly spinning disc of matter that is forming a new solar system. They help the newborn star in the middle to grow, but make it harder for planets to form. We don’t yet understand why the discs become unstable like this,” Guo said.

The old smoker stars are a kind of red giant. Red giants are stars which have essentially expired, that is, they’ve run out of hydrogen fuel and have “died” in a sense. This often causes violent energy outbursts from the star for a while. Our own sun will go through this one day in the far off future, swallowing several of the inner planets in the course of its death according to NASA, though the fate of the Earth remains relatively unclear when this happens. Luckily, it’ll be several billion years before this occurs so it will more than likely be somebody else’s problem by then.  

The team of scientists involved with these studies found several red giants, 21 to be exact, that appeared to be a bit different than those found in the past. They chose seven of these stars to focus on and noticed unusual characteristics that puzzled them, most noticeably the smoke and dust they appeared to exert which is how they received the moniker ‘old smoker.’ 

“These elderly stars sit quietly for years or decades and then puff out clouds of smoke in a totally unexpected way,” said Dante Minniti, a professor in the department of physics at Andrés Bello University in Chile and coauthor on three of the studies, in a press release “They look very dim and red for several years, to the point that sometimes we can’t see them at all.”

Most of the stars the team studied were found near the center or the nucleus if you will of the Milky Way Galaxy, known as the innermost nuclear disc. Lucas explained that these newly discovered stars could potentially play a role in the way elements are distributed across the galaxies.

“Matter ejected from old stars plays a key role in the life cycle of the elements, helping to form the next generation of stars and planets,” Lucas said. “This was thought to occur mainly in a well-studied type of star called a Mira variable. However, the discovery of a new type of star that throws off matter could have wider significance for the spread of heavy elements in the Nuclear Disc and metal-rich regions of other galaxies.”

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Images taken using radar technology of an area near the equator of Mars have revealed what appears to be massive deposits of ice buried underneath the surface of the Red Planet.

According to a press release from the European Space Agency, if the radar images do turn out to be water ice, it would be enough to cover the entire planet in a shallow ocean of water anywhere from 1.5 meters to 2.7 meters deep. This could potentially prove an extremely useful discovery for future human exploration and potential occupation of Mars.

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter was responsible for the discovery. The Mars Express was launched in June of 2003 and has been used to research the fourth planet from the sun ever since 2004. Since that time it has found striking evidence of current or past presence of water on Mars including the discovery of hydrated minerals which, according to NASA, form only in the presence of water. 

This is not the first time evidence of ice has been found on Mars, but the new discovery represents the largest potential deposits of ice found thus far in an area known as the Medusae Fossae Formation, which was studied about 15 years ago for its deposits which were not able to be clearly seen at the time. 

“We’ve explored the MFF again using newer data from Mars Express’s MARSIS radar, and found the deposits to be even thicker than we thought: up to 3.7 km thick,” said Thomas Watters of the Smithsonian Institution USA, lead author of both the new research and the initial 2007 study. “Excitingly, the radar signals match what we’d expect to see from layered ice, and are similar to the signals we see from Mars’s polar caps, which we know to be very ice rich.”

The MFF is an area of Mars known for its massive amounts of dust which can create harrowing dust storms all around the planet. When the Mars Express originally identified images of the deposits 15 years ago, it was suspected the deposits might just be more dust, but researchers have said that the new images show greater evidence that the deposits appear to be water ice. 

“Here’s where the new radar data comes in! Given how deep it is, if the MFF was simply a giant pile of dust, we’d expect it to become compacted under its own weight,” said co-author Andrea Cicchetti of the National Institute for Astrophysics, Italy. “This would create something far denser than what we actually see with MARSIS. And when we modeled how different ice-free materials would behave, nothing reproduced the properties of the MFF – we need ice.”

The discovery was made from an orbiting spacecraft far above the surface so it will likely be several years, decades even, before we can find out for certain but the European Space Agency emphasized the importance of the discovery as crucial information to a well-rounded understanding of the planet which very well could house humans one day.

“This latest analysis challenges our understanding of the Medusae Fossae Formation, and raises as many questions as answers,” said Colin Wilson, ESA project scientist for Mars Express and the ESA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). “Unfortunately, these MFF deposits are covered by hundreds of meters of dust, making them inaccessible for at least the next few decades. However, every bit of ice we find helps us build a better picture of where Mars’s water has flowed before, and where it can be found today.”

In the event that a human-occupied spacecraft lands on Mars, it’s near impossible with current technology to land near the polar caps of Mars, which have been known for a while to contain water ice. If the MFF deposits do turn out to be water ice, it would be a much easier area to access based on proximity to potential landing zones for humans to access water. 

“How long ago did these ice deposits form, and what was Mars like at that time? If confirmed to be water ice, these massive deposits would change our understanding of Mars climate history. Any reservoir of ancient water would be a fascinating target for human or robotic exploration,” Wilson said. “Together, our Mars explorers are revealing more and more about our planetary neighbor.”

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NASA is taking steps to prepare for future long-term occupation on the Moon by seeking input from the lunar and scientific communities on ways to convert lunar soil and other naturally-occurring compounds into oxygen. 

The nation’s leading space organization made an announcement Monday asking for input on In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technologies, which in this case means using materials found on the moon, the vast majority of which are moon dust, to produce fuel, oxygen, water and other resources human beings might use or consume. These processes may one day make it possible for human beings to enjoy a sustainable presence on the moon or other planets without the need to shuttle resources to and from Earth. 

NASA issued a Request for Information (RFI) for ISRU technologies which essentially allows them to start officially gathering information from outside parties for their future Lunar Infrastructure Foundational Technologies demonstration, also known as LIFT-1. LIFT-1 can be described as the foundation for the next phase of American lunar occupation, NASA’s officially designated program to put American boots back on the moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in December of 1972.

“Additional LIFT-1 objectives may include demonstrating new landing technologies, surface operations, and scalable power generation in the Moon’s South Pole region,” a NASA press release said. “With the RFI, NASA is asking for input from the lunar community to inform an integrated approach inclusive of launch, landing, and demonstration of surface infrastructure technologies as part of a subscale ISRU demonstration.”

One of the many issues standing in the way of human occupation on the Moon or anywhere else beyond Earth is that it’s very difficult, expensive and time consuming to bring enough resources for everybody. Launching a rocket ship from Earth costs multiple millions of dollars no matter how you slice it and every pound on board makes it monumentally more expensive. As such, long term space occupation isn’t really practical or feasible without ISRU technology. 

NASA leadership described ISRU technology development as a crucial necessity for the longevity of our astronauts, their equipment, and the possibility of one day creating permanent human settlements on the Moon or beyond. 

“Using in-situ resources is essential to making a sustained presence farther from Earth possible. Just as we need consumables and infrastructure to live and work on our home planet, we’ll need similar support systems on the Moon for crew and robots to operate safely and productively,” said Dr. Prasun Desai, acting associate administrator of the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 

NASA has already showcased certain ISRU technologies, most notably MOXIE, a small instrument onboard the Mars Perseverance Rover which successfully converted atmospheric carbon dioxide into usable oxygen on April 20, 2021. This type of conversion is useful on a planet like Mars which has an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide. However, the moon has virtually no atmosphere according to NASA, so technology must be created to extract oxygen from naturally occurring minerals in the ground. 

NASA has several investments in ISRU technology already in the way of prospecting, extraction and mining initiatives as well as several outstanding academic and industry partnerships but the RFI issued Monday, which is open until December 18, is specifically looking for information on chemical processes capable of harnessing resources from lunar dust and soil. 

“Chemical and thermal process developments may provide options to break down naturally occurring minerals and compounds found on the Moon and convert them to propellant or human consumables,” the press release said. “Other potential longer-term applications could lead to extraterrestrial metal processing and construction of lunar surface structures using resources found on the Moon.”

Another representative from NASA leadership said in a written statement that the idea of harnessing oxygen and other usable resources from the ground has been theorized about for a long time but the idea may soon be utilized for real life space travel. 

“An ISRU technology demonstration approach has been a topic of discussion within the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative and Consortium communities for several years,” said Niki Werkheiser, director of Technology Maturation in STMD. “This RFI is the next phase to make it a reality.” 

The LIFT-1 RFI can be found here and is open for responses through Dec. 18 at 5:00 p.m. EST. Additionally. NASA will host an industry forum on Monday, Nov. 13 at 1 pm EST.

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Some routine repairs on the International Space Station unveiled something mysterious last week when a Russian astronaut found holes drilled into the side of the orbiting vessel.

According to a NASA press release, two Russian astronauts by the names of Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub were on a spacewalk on October 25, attempting to repair a radiator that was leaking coolant into the vacuum of space when they found an additional irregularity.

According to an article in Space, Kononenko was inspecting one of the outer panels of the leaky radiator when he noticed what appeared to be multiple holes drilled into the surface of the radiator panel. 

“The holes have very even edges, like they’ve been drilled through,” Kononenko said to the flight controllers working in Moscow Mission Control. “There are lots of them. They are spread in a chaotic manner.”

Neither NASA nor Roscosmos, which is essentially Russia’s post-Soviet-Union-Era version of NASA, had addressed the holes as of the time this article was written to offer speculation as to how the holes may have ended up there. The only information about the holes online is all sourced back to the same information in the Space article. This is not uncommon for space agencies, however, as NASA and Roscosmos both have long-standing reputations for being very selective with what they disclose publicly, without going too deep into conspiracy theories.

After locating and documenting the mysterious holes, the spacewalk took another unexpected turn when Kononenko and Chub encountered a large blob of coolant which had broken free from the leaky radiator, posing a contamination risk.

“During the spacewalk, Kononenko and Chub inspected and photographed an external backup radiator on the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module, as well as isolated the radiator from Nauka’s cooling system,” a NASA press release said. “During the radiator inspection, a bubble of coolant liberated at the leak site and the crew wiped down their suits prior to continuing the spacewalk.”

The radiator was originally reported leaking on October 9 and was a backup radiator for another which is used to regulate temperature inside the ISS. Coolant supply for the backup radiator was cut off shortly before repairs were made, which is believed to be what led to the coolant bubble forming. According to Space, the bubble reportedly came close enough to Kononenko that one of his tethers became contaminated and had to be bagged and left outside the ISS after the spacewalk. Tethers are cables used to keep the astronauts attached to the orbiting space vessel rather than hurtling off into space (and certain death).

The two Russian astronauts reportedly gave their spacesuits a thorough wipe-down before they returned to the ISS and ended their spacewalk. Contamination risk by unknown microorganisms poses a much bigger threat in the vacuum of space than it would on Earth, according to information published by NASA, the National Institute of Health, and many others. These risks necessitate astronauts to sterilize their tools and suits before re-entering the spacecraft. 

“At the end of the spacewalk, before reentering the Poisk airlock, the two spacewalking cosmonauts as usual inspected the Roscosmos Orlan spacesuits and the tools used during the spacewalk to look for signs of coolant and wipe off any coolant as necessary,” NASA said. “The cosmonauts also wiped down their suits and tools as usual after repressurization to further reduce introduction of trace contaminates into the space station environment. Additional filtration will then be used inside the space station in order to quickly scrub the atmosphere of any remaining traces of contaminant.”

This is not the first time Roscosmos has reported holes drilled into the ISS. A Russian news agency accused a NASA astronaut of drilling holes into the ISS in 2021 due to a failed romantic relationship with another astronaut, though this was never confirmed. Another report of small holes in the ISS came earlier this year. Another report of a coolant leak from last December was caused by small meteorites, according to the Russians. In fact, there are many stories online about small holes in the ISS that go back years, many of them having to do with Russia. That is not to say the information is untrue, just a small caveat to what appears to be an ongoing problem.

Kononenko and Chub reportedly ended their spacewalk after seven hours and 41 minutes without any further complications. The Oct. 25 spacewalk was reportedly the sixth such walk in Kononenko’s career, a first for Chub and the 268th in the history of the ISS. The next spacewalk for the ISS, undertaken by NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli, was actually underway at the time this article was written. It began at 8:05 a.m. EDT Monday morning and was scheduled to last about six-and-a-half-hours.

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The United States Air Force has denied re-entry and landing permission for a floating drug factory that has apparently been orbiting the Earth producing zero-gravity pharmaceuticals since June.

Originally reported by TechCrunch, the in-space drug production capsule owned and operated by Varda Space Industries has been experimenting with making a certain kind of HIV medication in low-gravity environments. Varda announced on June 30 they had successfully synthesized a vial of Ritonavir crystals, a drug used to treat HIV.

“Over the last day, for the first time ever, orbital drug processing happened outside of a government-run space station,” Varda said in a post to their X account. “Our crystallization of Ritonavir appears to have been nominal.”

The capsule was originally slated to come back down to Earth on July 17 to bolster its newly-synthesized crystals of Ritonavir, a drug used to treat HIV, but their plans were delayed until early September for reasons they somewhat danced around in a post to their X account.

“Our original reentry date of July 17th was pushed back, as we work [with] our government partners to ensure everyone is fully ready,” Varda said in July. “The pharma crystals onboard are ready to come home!”

Varda was subsequently denied permission to land at an Air Force training area in Utah for reasons the company chose not to disclose, though a spokesperson for the Air Force provided the following statement on the matter to TechCrunch:

“September 5 and 7 were their primary targets. The request to use the Utah Test and Training Range for the landing location was not granted at this time due to the overall safety, risk and impact analysis. In a separate process, the FAA has not granted a reentry license. All organizations continue working to explore recovery options,” the statement said.

Varda also chose not to comment on why their September re-entry dates were denied, posting only a brief update to their X account saying the capsule had enough resources to stay in space much longer if need be.

“As a quick update, we’re pleased to report that our spacecraft is healthy across all systems. It was originally designed for a full year on orbit if needed,” Varda said. “We look forward to continuing to collaborate [with] our gov partners to bring our capsule back to Earth as soon as possible.”

Varda applied for a reconsideration to the FAA decision on September 8 but the FAA had only a brief statement for TechCrunch about the matter, saying ““On September 8, Varda formally requested that the FAA reconsider its decision. The request for reconsideration is pending.”

Ritonavir is not a new drug. It was first synthesized in 1989 and can be made on Earth. The novel part of what Varda is doing appears to be the way in which they conduct their crystallization process.

“Conducting polymorph, salt and cocrystal screens in microgravity can lead to novel form discovery,” said an excerpt from the Varda website. “Reduced crystal growth rates result in the formation of high quality single crystals that can be used for X-ray structure determination.”

The benefits of producing drugs in low gravity compared to producing them on Earth are a bit beyond my simple journalism powers of understanding, though Varda does offer an explanation of the process on their website:

“Processing materials in microgravity, or the near-weightless conditions found in space, offers a unique environment not available through terrestrial processing. These benefits primarily stem from the lack of convection and sedimentation.These effects are ‘locked’ into the material, typically through material crystallization, before being brought back to Earth.”

The Air Force said they will continue to work with Varda and the FAA to safely bring the capsule back home to Earth but they could not provide an estimated re-entry date.

“Our objective at the Utah Test and Training Range remains working with customers requesting reentry missions in a safe, secure, and sustainable fashion, upon which Varda (and potentially future partners) can model their investments, engagement, and activities,” an Air Force spokesperson said to TechCrunch. “We also stress this is a whole-of-government and interagency process to set the correct precedents for future activities such as these.”

Now while I may not personally need any Ritonavir, I sincerely hope that we as a people can get our collective scientific shit together and safely bring these space drugs back home to Earth. Doing so would be one small step for man, one giant leap toward me getting to try “Martian LSD” or whatever the hell it ends up being sometime in the near future. Just let me dream.

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An employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) pleaded guilty to using COVID relief designed for small businesses to fund an illegal cannabis operation.

A NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) employee agreed to plead guilty to defrauding a government loan program developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. He admitted that he used part of the proceeds to fund an illegal cannabis grow operation, the Justice Department announced on July 24.

“Armen Hovanesian, 32, of Glendale, a cost-control and budget-planning resource analyst for the JPL, a federally funded research and development center operated by the California Institute of Technology for NASA, agreed to plead guilty to a single-count information charging him with wire fraud,” the Justice department wrote. “Both the information and a plea agreement were filed Thursday in United States District Court. Hovanesian is expected to make his initial court appearance on August 11.” 

Per the plea agreement, between June 2020 to October 2020, Hovanesian applied for three loans, using the names of business entities under his control to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL), a program administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that provided low-interest financing to small businesses, renters, and homeowners, in this case, for businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Hovanesian admitted to making false and fraudulent statements in the loan applications concerning the gross revenues each of the businesses had generated in the preceding year as well as false and fraudulent statements concerning his intended use of loan proceeds.” 

The SBA requires—under penalty of perjury—that grantees “use all the proceeds” of the loans for which he applied and caused others to apply for “solely as working capital to alleviate economic injury caused by disaster” consistent with the terms and limitations of the EIDL program. 

But instead of using it for COVID relief, Hovanesian used the proceeds for his own benefit, repaying a personal real-estate debt and funding his illegal cannabis cultivation operation. 

The Justice Department says Hovanesian fraudulently used the SBA to transfer via interstate wire EIDL proceeds amounting to $151,900.

The punishment is serious: After Hovanesian pleads guilty, he will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

Fraudsters Take Advantage of COVID Relief

Abusing COVID relief funding is commonplace. To combat this, the United States Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force in May 2021, and hundreds of alleged criminals have been charged as part of the task force’s work.

COVID relief programs including SBA funding and Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, were commonly abused. COVID relief loan schemes dominated the years following the pandemic.

NBC News reported how COVID relief funds were abused to buy Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Teslas, and Bentleys.

​​Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who oversees COVID relief spending, told NBC anchor Lester Holt that COVID relief programs were structured in ways that made them especially easy to take advantage of, and businesspeople were caught buying expensive sports cars and other luxuries using the money.

“The Small Business Administration, in sending that money out, basically said to people, ‘Apply and sign and tell us that you’re really entitled to the money,’” said Horowitz, the chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. “And, of course, for fraudsters, that’s an invitation. … What didn’t happen was even minimal checks to make sure that the money was getting to the right people at the right time.”

“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” said Matthew Schneider, a former U.S. attorney. “It is the biggest fraud in a generation.”

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The test flight of SpaceX’s highly anticipated Starship rocket—eventually en route to the moon and Mars—was delayed from its original launch date on Monday and rescheduled for a new day: April 20.

The rocket remains on the launchpad located in Cameron County, Texas, approximately 17 miles east of Brownsville, while engineers get the rocket’s pressurized system ready again, which unexpectedly froze. “A pressurant valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon, no launch today,” Musk initially tweeted Monday.

“SpaceX is targeting as soon as Thursday, April 20 for the first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Starbase in Texas,” the company posted. “The 62 minute launch window opens at 8:28 a.m. CT and closes at 9:30 a.m. CT.” The fact that it will launch on April 20 is “perhaps inevitable,” Musk tweeted in reply to the announcement.

What makes Starship unique is its fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit. Musk and the SpaceX team believe that humanity will return to the Moon and travel to Mars. This particular test will help SpaceX improve the probability of success in the future. 

“To date, the SpaceX team has completed multiple sub-orbital flight tests of Starship’s upper stage from Starbase, successfully demonstrating an unprecedented approach to controlled flight,” SpaceX wrote. “These flight tests helped validate the vehicle’s design, proving Starship can fly through the subsonic phase of entry before re-lighting its engines and flipping itself to a vertical configuration for landing.”

SpaceX explained why there are so many factors that can delay a space flight.

“In addition to the testing of Starship’s upper stage, the team has conducted numerous tests of the Super Heavy rocket, which include the increasingly complex static fires that led to a full-duration 31 Raptor engine test—the largest number of simultaneous rocket engine ignitions in history. The team has also constructed the world’s tallest rocket launch and catch tower. At 146 meters, or nearly 500 feet tall, the launch and catch tower is designed to support vehicle integration, launch, and catch of the Super Heavy rocket booster. For the first flight test, the team will not attempt a vertical landing of Starship or a catch of the Super Heavy booster.”

A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 45 minutes before liftoff. As is the case with many space-related launches, this schedule is dynamic and likely to change.

“During the next attempt on Thursday, the Super Heavy booster will detach and then make a hard splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about eight minutes after liftoff. Starship’s upper-stage spacecraft will make a partial lap around Earth, coming down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii around 90 minutes after launch,” the report said.

Is the 4/20 date significant? Probably, given Musk’s past five years in the spotlight: On August 7, 2018, Musk tweeted he was mulling over taking Tesla private, quoting a price of $420 per share for the buyout.

He told the New York Times that he’s aware of how popular weed is, but he’s not sure how it could help productivity, to be candid. “It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419,” Musk said. “But I was not on weed, to be clear.” That all changed a month later on a podcast appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.

On September 6, 2018, Musk smoked a blunt on episode #1169 of The Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan himself became embroiled in the topic of free speech due to his Spotify fiasco, over concerns the podcaster was sharing information that wasn’t medically sound.

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A bunch of highly trained scientists in China are, right hand to God, sending macaque monkeys and mice into space so they can study how they reproduce in space-like conditions.

“Some studies involving mice and macaques will be carried out to see how they grow or even reproduce in space,” a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhang Lu, said in a speech Monday. “These experiments will help improve our understanding of an organism’s adaptation to microgravity and other space environments.”

According to an article by the South China Morning Post, the study will take place aboard the Wentian Lab Module on the Chinese Space Station Tiangong. The space station is currently outfitted with small test cabinets intended for fish or snails but they will be reconfigured to house the monkeys, who were presumably still on Earth as of the publication of this article.

Anyone with a pulse is currently wondering the following: is it even possible to make monkeys have sex in space? Have humans had sex in space? If you have sex in space but give birth to the baby on Earth is the baby an earthling or an alien? Would that very same baby be barred from entering the United States under Trump’s immigration laws?

The history here is interesting, actually. Fruit flies were the first living creatures officially sent into space in 1947. Then the Soviets and the U.S. sent a bunch of animals including monkeys, mice, and dogs into orbit in the late 40s and 50s. I’ve seen some reports that mating may have occurred but the Soviets weren’t big on sharing notes so it’s hard to say.

In terms of the present day space monkeys, a Beijing college professor told the SCMP that their large size presents more issues, but studying larger animals is crucial for understanding if humans can create colonies on other planets.

“The astronauts will need to feed them and deal with the waste,” Professor Kehkooi Kee of Tsinghua University told the SCMP. “These experiments will be necessary.”

As far as humans go, NASA has clearly stated that as far as they know, no humans have ever had sex in space. No reports of space sex have ever been confirmed, though it is a surprisingly hotly-debated issue. An American astronaut couple married in secret before joining each other on a mission to the International Space Station in the 90s but the official story is basically that everyone is always too busy doing astronaut shit to think about screwing. I call shenanigans on that but I’ve also never been to space. 

Our nation’s top scientists say the physics of space sex would be quite difficult as you’d need a third person, or a lot of velcro, to properly hold you in place. Not only that, the increased radiation levels in space and the effects of zero gravity on blood circulation present equally challenging issues for sexual and reproductive success. 

According to a 2014 study: “Relative to other organ systems, the gonads are highly sensitive to radiation exposure. In men and women, temporary infertility is associated with high-dose, acute radiation exposure.”

Many scientists have also proposed that the way low gravity affects blood circulation might make it difficult for men to produce or maintain an erection. All this, coupled with the lack of privacy on a spacecraft has thus far made it very difficult for astronauts to, dare I say, experiment in this department. 

Which brings us back to the Chinese launching monkeys into space. If the monkeys can successfully reproduce without any issues, or if we can at least develop an understanding of any issues that do occur, it may be key to understanding if humans can maintain future colonies in space or on other planets.

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