Sex in Space? UFO? Inquiring Minds Hit Mir

HOUSTON — Ten astronauts and cosmonauts are carrying out a critical resupply mission for Russia’s ailing Mir station and this is what inquiring TV viewers want to know: What about sex in space? And: Have you seen any UFOs?

The questions came during a live call-in C-SPAN show with the crews of the docked Mir and space shuttle Atlantis on Monday, their third day of joint flight.

Caller No. 4 brought up NASA’s No. 1 taboo.

“I was just wondering, has anybody ever thought about having sex in space? Raising a family in space?” the Chico, Calif., man asked.

Yes, tell us about the rules on that, the C-SPAN interviewer interjected.

“Well, we don’t have to worry about the rules for that, we’re all so busy and we’re professionals, of course,” shuttle commander Charles Precourt replied, drawing a big laugh from his crew mates.

He turned to Russian cosmonaut Elena Kondakova, an Atlantis crew member, for help.

“I don’t understand the essence of this question,” she replied in Russian after the question was translated. “Is that a meeting of people who are unmarried or are we talking about life in space?”

She added: “Let’s first conduct experiments on lower forms of life and then we will see how can a human life develop in microgravity.”

Caller No. 9 from Phoenix wanted to know whether the two Russians living on Mir “have seen anything unusual, possibly UFOs?”

“Sorry,” replied cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin, “I haven’t seen anything unusual, though I would like to see something unusual very much.”

Other questions for the space travelers: Whether their spiritual beliefs have changed in orbit and whether the Martian atmosphere should be altered to allow for human habitation.

The astronauts and cosmonauts spent most of the day hauling more supplies between the two spacecraft and taking air and water samples from the station to check for contaminants from broken equipment.

Atlantis will return the samples to Earth on Saturday, after undocking on Wednesday night.