Big Bang: Dutch Firm Eyes Space Baby

A Dutch entrepreneur is pioneering space sex research, with the eventual aim of natural conception and birth in the partial gravity environment found on Mars.

Egbert Edelbroek, founder of the firm Spaceborn United, believes that it is important for humanity to become a multiplanetary species, and that reproductive capability in space is essential for this to happen.

However, the challenges of achieving safe space sex are galactic. One of the biggest problems is the lack of gravity, which would cause a couple to drift away from each other during intercourse.

Spaceborn United is getting around this problem by focusing on developing a way to conceive an embryo in space. They are doing this by creating a disk that mixes sperm and egg cells together, with the aim of producing a viable embryo.

Once an embryo has been created, it is cryogenically frozen and stored in a special container called a "space station for your cells". This protects the embryo from the shaking, vibration, and G-forces that it would be exposed to during re-entry to Earth.

Spaceborn United is currently conducting research in simulated partial gravity laboratory conditions, and plans to launch a mission with mice cells at the end of next year. They hope to launch a mission with a human embryo within the next five or six years.

However, even if Spaceborn United is successful in developing a way to conceive and transport embryos in space, there are still significant ethical hurdles that need to be overcome before such an embryo could be implanted back into a woman to give birth to the first child conceived in space.

One of the main concerns is the exposure of the embryo to the hazards of space, such as radiation and microgravity. There is also the question of whether it is ethical to subject a human embryo to such risks in the first place.