Comments on: Sex and Space Travel: Predictions from the 1950s

By: Ray

Ray — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 14:46:42 +0000

@Steve Portigal: I suspect it actually was written by someone at NASA, in the same way that The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline was written by a chemist doing his doctoral research.

By: Shir-El

Shir-El — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:31:40 +0000

Perhaps Robert Heinlein had Richardson’s article in the back of his mind when he wrote “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.” For Barbara: a bathtub is a good simulator. Personally, I would be far more worried about the possible effects of stray radiation bursts on potential offspring. For Carmen: many medieval communities made sure their clergymen had a live-in ‘housekeeper’, often paying her salary. For R. Freemen: E.E. “Doc” Smith’s heroines in the Lensmen series still had a tendency to depend on their males rather than being their equals; but thank you for pointing up for me that he was a pioneer for his time. Cheers to you all!

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 00:34:20 +0000

Interesting!

By: R Freeman

R Freeman — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 18:08:13 +0000

These are not the women of space of my science fiction. Consider Clarissa MacDougall Kinnison of the Lensman series. She is married to lensman Kim Kinnison. Both are highly intelligent, skilled and very capable operators. She is a sex object to only her husband and can be as lethal as a bomb to an enemy. The women in the lensman series and many other science fiction stories of the 30s, 40s and 50s are almost super human in their beauty, intelligence and abilities. They are equals in every sense with their mates or husbands.

By: Thom McCann

Thom McCann — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:14:15 +0000

By the way this experiment was already tried by the Nazis with their “Lebenborn” program.

They wanted to produce perfect Aryans so SS men mated with women volunteers and the children were to be raised by the state to become morons for the German army.

Visit Germany. Look around.

They succeeded.

By: Thom McCann

Thom McCann — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:08:52 +0000

This is why they were called “nerds.”

Why didn’t the immoral scientists suggest that married couples go in space instead of concubines.

I guess he was fantasizing what immoral acts he would have liked to have done—even on earth!

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:24:14 +0000

Oh . . . this was already covered by the film, “Way Way Out,” (Jerry Lewis & Connie Stevens).

By: Willi Hill

Willi Hill — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:51:27 +0000

Will humans ever evolve enough to step out of the dark ages in regard to their views on sex and women? I doubt it.

By: David Henshaw

David Henshaw — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 20:07:47 +0000

Philip Jose Farmer (The Lovers 1953, and numerous others) and Asimov (I’m in Marsport without Hilda, 1957) as well as Heinlein’s women as cows (Farnham’s Freehold? 1964) are all early erotic sex storie.
To say nothing of the lurid ill-clad women on scifi magazines of the 50s (my favorite: Marooned off Vesta, in which the bikini-clad girl by her lifeboat scene does not appear in the titles story.

By: Emelio Lizardo

Emelio Lizardo — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 16:18:38 +0000

“Richardson’s solution to the problem of loneliness for astronaut men sailing towards Mars is rather offensive,…”

Hardly. A professional sex provider with secondary skills would be an essential personal for a long mission. That or have 1.3 females for each male.