TWO SPACE ALIENS SIT DOWN TO DINNER.
“What’s that green stuff?”
“Avocado. Its color enhances my complexion.” “I’m going to try some. … Waiter!”
“You know, we’re a punchline.”
“Aliens are?”
“Yup. As in, ‘Seen any little green men lately?’”
“Here on Earth, with as many homeless as they have, it’s the Earthlings who ought to be the punchline.”
“We don’t have any homeless on Malinois.”
“That’s because we care. We make sure everybody has a warm, safe place to live.”
“If we lived here, aliens like you and me would be homeless.”
“Anybody who looks like you and eats green stuff to make you greener would be homeless for sure.”
“Worse, the Earthlings wouldn’t care if we were homeless. They don’t care enough about their homeless people.”
“What do they care about?” “Having sex in space.”
“What?!”
“That’s right! Having sex in space.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I saw an article in an Earthling newspaper, called the New York Times. I brought it with me. Here, I’ll read it to you:
Astronauts have confirmed over the past few decades that in space, the flesh is willing. But truth be told, we don’t even know if you can actually do the fun part of making space kids.
While the moon and Mars provide some gravity, a vast majority of data on space physiology comes from orbital space stations, where astronauts hang in constant free fall. Weightlessness is ideal for physics problems, but not for intercourse; a nudge toward you will send you flying backward with equal and opposite momentum. Without the familiar frame of reference provided by Earth’s gravity, concepts like “top” and “bottom” are without physical meaning.
All of this will make the orientationless mambo awkward. The space popularizers James and Alcestis Oberg wrote in 1986 that those who attempt the act “may thrash around helplessly like beached flounders until they meet up with a wall they can smash into” …
“What do they know? Who wrote that New York Times story?”
“It’s what the New York Times calls a guest essay. It was written by Zach Weinersmith, a cartoonist who creates web comics, and his wife, Kelly, a college professor.”
“A college professor? That figures!”
“Here’s what else they wrote.”
You’ll want something that keeps people together. The engineer and futurist Thomas Heppenheimer called for an “unchastity belt.” Another concept, pitched by Samuel Coniglio, a former vice president of the Space Tourism Society, is the “snuggle tunnel.” There’s also Vanna Bonta’s 2suit, which would keep a weightless couple connected via Velcro straps. [She was a writer, actress and inventor whose suit was designed specifically for sex in space.]
But what happens after the unchastity belt is unbuckled, the snuggle tunnel sheepishly exited? If the goal is a self-sustaining settlement, it’s important for the encounter to be productive, leading to children, conceived and born on site.
Is this possible? Science can’t answer that yet. … We still don’t know what the effects would be for women planning to give birth, or on developing babies, children and adolescents.
“Do Earthlings care about anything besides sex and reproducing?”
“Money.”
“Do they spend any to help the homeless?”
“Not nearly as much as they spend on themselves. Pass the avocado.”
