Russians Sex Space Rumor Denied

By: Mary Smith
04/25/2011 03:08 PM ET

Russians Sex Space. A rumor that sex was practiced by astronauts in space by the Russians and NASA has been denied. It’s been a question often asked to NASA, which has denied any such experiment or mission.

A Russian space official, for example, has been quoted as categorically denying his country’s space program has conducted any such weightless experiments.

“There is no official or unofficial evidence that there were instances of sexual intercourse or the carrying out of sexual experiments in space,” Valery Bogomolov, the deputy director of the Moscow-based Institute of Biomedical Problems, told the news agency Interfax. “At least, in the history of Russian or Soviet space exploration, this most certainly was not the case.”

Bogomolov also addressed the rumors of American hanky-panky, though with considerably less authority.

“As for American space exploration, I just don’t have the information to categorically deny that,” Bogomolov told Interfax. “In any case we do not have any official data. There are just anecdotal rumors, insinuations in the press, which are not worth trusting.”

Those in the know say NASA astronauts have likely been as chaste as their Russian counterparts while zipping around Earth at 17,500 mph (28,164 kilometers per hour). While NASA apparently doesn’t explicitly forbid sex in orbit, its astronaut code of conduct calls for “relationships of trust” and “professional standards” to be maintained at all times.