The Kármán sutra
“Sex in space: Consideration of uncontrolled human conception in emerging space tourism” is a written by David Cullen at Cranfield University in the UK, in collaboration with sex-in-space enthusiasts in the US, the Netherlands, Brazil and Austria. It is stimulating much discussion.
The paper is almost Victorian in its voluminous discussion of possible regulatory mechanisms, but nearly complete avoidance of mentioning fornication. The highest moment of titillation comes in the following passage: “The adult film industry has previously explored the possibility of video/film production in space environments. In 2000 a parabolic aircraft flight was used for filming a weightless scene…”
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The authors explain that they created the document “to encourage and contribute to a broad actor and stakeholder engagement and discussion”.
Feedback offers further encouragement by mentioning a somewhat related paper written in South Africa in 2009. It is called .
Like “Sex in space”, “Sex, sun, soccer” looks at people who just want to get together. The old paper, like the new one, gives close attention to opinionated experts. In it, one of those experts seemingly spoke to the spacey future, as well as to the soccer-y, sex-and-sun-drenched milieu of 2009:
“Most vocal has been the now suspended South African Chief of Police, Jackie Selebi, who urged the National Assembly’s Safety and Security Committee to consider the reality of the thousands of soccer fans expected to overrun the public sphere and satisfy their urge to try out more exotic pastimes”.
The new, “Sex in space” paper from Cullen and his colleagues echoes Selebi’s thought, saying that “it seems unrealistic to assume that all space tourism participants will abstain from sexual activities whilst in space and exposed to space environments”.
Sadly for all concerned, The New York Times on 23 January 2015 that Selebi, “who in 2010 was convicted of taking bribes from a drug trafficker in a trial that drew immense international attention, died on Friday in a Pretoria hospital”.
Perhaps Cullen and his “Sex in space” co-authors can seek advice from another South African figure, the rocketry and money enthusiast Elon Musk.
Love thy crank
Many scientists enjoy an unsteady supply of letters sent to them by eccentrics. Many scientists don’t enjoy it.
People at the have been gathering and tending a list of what they regard as “cranks”. From a action-potential perspective, and perhaps from other perspectives, too, here are some of the standout items:
“Andy Kadir-Buxton – slapping people on the head to cure mental illness”;
“John Brandenburg – the ‘thermonuclear war on Mars’ guy”;
“Richard Shaver – Subterranean cities and their malevolent inhabitants, the Dero”;
“Aleister Crowley – Magic powers, demon and angel summoning, being the Great Beast 666”.
Feedback presumes that list includes a small number of mistakes and a vast sea of omissions. And that some of the entries were written by “cranks”.
The world, with its approximately 8 billion human inhabitants, is numerically cruel. Only a very small percentage of the population ever gains international notice of any kind.
Accordingly, if you, dear reader, find yourself included in that “cranks” list, Feedback offers you hearty congratulations on being recognised, however incorrectly, correctly or unfathomably.
To be sniffed at
The desire to “wake up and smell the coffee” drives many people. In the science community, that drive is notoriously and proudly strong. A Belgian/Italian/Argentinian collaboration is souping up the available technology for smelling coffee, some details of which appeared recently in . In their words, these collaborators are “exploring different high-capacity tools and extraction modes to characterize the aroma of brewed coffee”. Others, elsewhere, are working with the same aim and enthusiasm.
Coffeetechnosniffistas abound. Many of them are joyful and eager to make friends. In the great tradition of tinkerers who brought the world reliable automobiles, airplanes, radios, computers, digital keyboards and social media apps, they talk in a jargon that outsiders might struggle to understand. But there is no need to feel intimidated. Curiosity, when combined with coffee, can lead to friendship and enlightenment.
Anyone who really does want to know more can take an easy first step. When visiting any coffee shop, be on the listen out for chitchat that sounds like this: “multi-cumulative trapping headspace extraction was explored by comparing the results using solid-phase microextraction coated with divinylbenzene/carboxen/polydimethylsiloxane and a probe-like tool coated with polydimethylsiloxane”.
When you hear it, bring yourself, and a smile and a cup of coffee, over to the chitchatters’ table and say: “I’d love to learn how this stuff works.”
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