Current Affairs

NASA’s proposed Mars voyage forgets lesbians and bi women exist

Oct 05 2017
Written by Josh Jackman

LAS VEGAS, NV - APRIL 26: NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson speaks during the panel, "Reaching for the Stars: Connecting to the Future with NASA and Hollywood" following the first-ever live 4K video stream from space showing NASA astronauts Cmdr. Peggy A. Whitson and Col. Jack Fischer from the International Space Station using a RED Epic Dragon camera during the 2017 NAB Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center on April 26, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. NAB Show, the trade show of the National Association of Broadcasters and the world's largest electronic media show, runs through April 27 and features more than 1,700 exhibitors and 103,000 attendees. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

(Getty)

Nasa apparently floated sending an all-female crew to Mars – and people have pointed out the slight sapphic issue with that plan.

Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut to go to space, made the revelation during at an event during the New Scientist Live festival in London.

Sharman, who was part of private British space programme Project Juno, said the report highlighted concerns about male and female astronauts having sex during the 18-month trip to Mars.

LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 20: British astronaut Helen Sharman attends an event to mark 25 years since her space mission hosted by the Science Museum on May 20, 2016 in London, England. Ms Sharman became the first Briton into space and the first female astronaut to visit the Mir space station in 1991, as part of Project Juno, a UK-Soviet cooperative programme. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

Helen Sharman (Getty)

Because of this, Nasa allegedly said that all-female crews would be best because women work better as a team.

Nasa proposed this idea because women were less likely to compete to be leader of the group, the report said, according to the Mail Online.

She suggested that there had been an official Nasa study looking at “impure thoughts” astronauts may experience during a mission to Mars.

NASA medical staff members examine International Space Station (ISS) crew member US astronaut Peggy Whitson shortly after she landed in a remote area outside the town of Dzhezkazgan (Zhezkazgan), Kazakhstan on September 3, 2017. US astronaut Peggy Whitson touched down to Earth on September 3 with two Russian and American colleagues following her record-breaking 288-day stay at the International Space Station. / AFP PHOTO / POOL / SERGEI ILNITSKY (Photo credit should read SERGEI ILNITSKY/AFP/Getty Images)

(Getty)

Sharman added: “I did hear some years ago that there was a report.

“Nasa has never released it, but it was done to see exactly the kind of crew makeup was necessary for the reason we have already alluded to,” she explained.

Former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin shows the t-shirt he wears promoting Mars exploration on November 12, 2015 in Geneva. Aldrin attended a press conference alongside Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier on the eve of a conference in Lausanne entitled "The Moon Race". AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI (Photo credit should read FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

Buzz Aldrin (Getty)

“It found that the crew should be the same gender: all men or all women.”

Of course, this assumes that the entire crew would be completely straight.

This is obviously absurd – especially when the first American woman to go to space, Sally Ride, was a lesbian.

Ride, who was 32 when she travelled to the great endless expanse in 1983, was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and earlier this year, was included in LEGO’s Women of NASA set.

Some expressed their disappointment at Nasa not realising this obvious flaw in its logic.

(Twitter/siobhanFTB)

But others…weren’t massively upset with the idea of lesbians colonising Mars, and wondered if it might just possibly be a conspiracy.

(Twitter/ EmilyGorcenski)

(Twitter/ hannahjherself)

(Twitter/popcorniani)

(Twitter/jinxland)

Nasa doesn’t ban its astronauts from having sex in space, instead asking that those who leave the shackles of Earth foster “relationships of trust” and maintain “professional standards”.

When an all-female group of top scientists began a space experiment in 2015, they had to deal with awful questions.

The six Russian women were compared to housewives, and asked questions like: “How will you deal with being without makeup for eight days?”

Ridiculously, they were also asked: “How will you cope with not being around men?”