China Plans to Send Monkeys to Space Station to Have Sex With Each Other

The South China Morning Post is reporting that Chinese scientists are planning to send monkeys to its new space station to have sex and possibly reproduce.

It's a fascinating and potentially controversial experiment that could have major implications for our attempts to colonize space.

The station's largest capsule, called Wentian, would be used for the experiment, which would take place inside two biological test cabinets.

Some studies involving mice and macaques will be carried out to see how they grow or even reproduce in space, according to a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Experiments will help improve our understanding of an organisms ability to adapt to space environments.

Nematos and Japanese rice fish have been seen reproducing in space.

Complex life forms have had difficulty. The Russian experiment to see if geckos could produce offspring in space failed due to the deaths of all the animals.

The failure rate for mammals has been very high. Soviet Union scientists got mice to mate in space in 1979 but they didn't give birth.

It will be difficult to get monkeys to reproduce on a space station. It can be difficult to deal with living creatures in space. A professor with the school of medicine at Tsinghua University told the South China Morning Post that the astronauts will need to eat and deal with the waste.

Since long term confinement in the spartan environments of space habitats could cause immense stress for the simians, experts say keeping the macaques happy and comfortable will be a challenge.

Sex in space is predicted to be difficult even if astronauts set the mood for the monkeys.

It's hard to stay in close contact with each other under zero gravity, according to an open letter written by an associate professor. Maintaining erections and arousal in space is more difficult than here on Earth.

With its new space station in nearly full operation, China isn't shy about asking some big questions, but whether these experiments will play out as expected is anything but certain.

The South China Morning Post reported on the monkey reproduction experiment.

Scientists say we need to talk about sex in space.