[extropy-chat] astro lass goes orbital

[Anders Sandberg]

Damien Broderick wrote:
> At 09:49 PM 2/7/2007 -0800, spike wrote:
>
>>I would rather think her bizarre wackiness is caused by a tumor than to
>>worry that any one of us could flip out at any time over that endorphin
>>surge we call love.
>
> Ha! Typical *NT*!

I must admit that my first reaction too was to think of brain tumors. *NT*
as charged.

The whole affair is so interesting because it clashes with Nasa's "No sex
please" policy: the official story is that there has never been any sex on
any space mission ever. Astronauts are heroes, space is a place for
manifest destiny or pure science. As soon as people join a mission they
leave out all human baggage and become pure Right Stuff. Perhaps rational
given that they are tax funded and doesn't dare to irritate their puritan
constituents, but rather hard to maintain now.

In a few years some minor celebrity will be boasting in all media that
they were first with sex in space on a Virgin Galactic flight.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University