NASA has plans to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024 and every year after that. The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, also promised a first crewed flight to Mars in 2026. There is even talks of the first space hotel to open before the end of the decade!
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That being said, the issue of reproduction in space has never been so topical, and we already have some elements of response.
The United States says 'no,' Russia says 'yes'
According to a survey from the American information site Five Thirty Eight, no one has ever made love in space. This isn't what Russia says, though. On the specialized site Futura-Sciences, one can read:
In 1982, officials of the space agency of the USSR acknowledged that an attempt at human coupling took place aboard Salyut 7, between the cosmonaut Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya and one of the other two occupants of the station, Leonid Popov or Alexander Serebrov.
The cosmonaut in question always refused to approach the subject in interviews and therefore never confirmed.
A secret couple within NASA
In NASA, couples are usually looked down upon by astronauts. There's still some doubt about a potential relationship with Jan Davis and Mark Lee, both of whom work in the US government agency. They were together aboard Space Shuttle Endeavor after their secret wedding in 1992...
Five species were tested
Scientists have tested relationships between five species including rats and fish but also amoebae, a unicellular organism. These five species have managed to mate in space. The first instance of this took place in 1994 between two mezaks, rice field fish, and the animals were born under the eyes of the scientists at the end of the 21st attempt...
