Sex, Death and the Mission to Mars

NASA is pondering what to do if an astronaut dies on a three-year mission to Mars and back, the Associated Press reports. It's also addressing other questions of medical ethics, such as whether or not to pull the plug on a critically injured astronaut who's using up precious oxygen. But agency doctors and scientists aren't going near another issue: What to do about astronauts who want to have sex in space. That's long been a taboo subject at NASA, and the medical folks say it's a behavioral matter that others at the agency will have to deal with.