Periods and Wanking in Space with Lauren Church | Transcript
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Hannah Witton
Have any astronauts like come out and said, yeah, I had a wank in space?
Lauren Church
Not that I know of. But again, like it well, NASA is generally pretty, like, we keep things very professional, like your role models for kids and whatever. So maybe don't talk about it. But
Hannah Witton
I want to know though
Lauren Church
I've met quite a few astronauts in my life and I might, I don't know, am I brave enough to ask one of them?
Hannah Witton
Welcome to Doing It with me, Hannah Witton, where we talk all things, sex, relationships, dating, and our bodies. Hi everyone, welcome back to Doing It. We are still in lockdown, and I'm still coming at you with some remote recordings of the podcast, and just some interesting conversations with people. And today is no different.
So this episode is all about space. And my guest, Lauren, got in touch with me recently telling me about her master's in space physiology at King's College London, and giving me loads of really great information, and little nuggets about women in space, and women's health. And what we do know, and what we don't know, about how being in space may affect women's bodies and brains differently to men's and I was instantly fascinated by this, and so grateful to be able to chat with Lauren, in this podcast episode, about sex and space basically. We talk about having periods in space, what astronauts do to make sure they don't have periods in space, what would happen if they did, has anyone ever had sex in space? What about wanking in space? As you can imagine, my brain had many different questions that there may or may not be answers to, as wanking in space isn't usually a topic of discussion at NASA. So I hope you're curious minds are as excited about this episode as me. I hope that you learn some new things from this episode, I certainly did. And hey, we can just all you know, speculate about wanking in space. Wouldn't that be nice? Thank you so much for listening, if you want to join in the conversation further, and let us know what you thought about this episode, please do tweet us, or message us on Instagram, we are @DoingItPodcast on both of those platforms. And thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hey, Lauren, thank you so much for joining me.
Lauren Church
Thank you very much for having me.
Hannah Witton
I can't wait to pick your brain about space, and medicine, and health, and bodies, and all of that stuff because this is just a world completely unknown to me.
Lauren Church
Yeah, I think it's a thing that not many people know about. But I get really, really excited about it. So I'm happy to have a chat.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I think it's just like a lot of the things that I talk about and think about on a daily basis, but hey, let's apply that to space.
Lauren Church
Yeah, definitely. So many things are just completely different when you take people off the planet. So yeah, it's great.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I think so I watched your TED Talk, and genuinely one of the things that like really stuck with me, that I think we can apply a lot of it to just human relationships, was about communication and reading people's facial expressions if you're upside down.
Lauren Church
Oh, yeah. So I kind of refer to it as the Spider Man effect. So you know, the scene in Spider Man where he's like hanging upside down. So they have a rule now that people have to be the same way up when they speak to each other, because they found that people are arguing a lot more frequently in space, than they were when they were like training on earth. And they're going, you know, why, why are they misunderstanding each other so often? But, you know, we we're wired to read people's facial expressions, when they're facing us in the same way up, you know, it's never really been a thing that we've ever had to think about before.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Lauren Church
But I found that really, really interesting. The way that people communicate is so fundamentally different when there's no up or down. So yeah, it's really, really cool.
Hannah Witton
That is just wild to me, because I always knew that like facial expressions and body language were really crucial in communication. But just the fact that like, if you're, if you're looking at someone's face, like the wrong way around, then that can just dramatically change what your understanding that they'd like saying to you. Obviously, my brain always goes here, but in my head, I was just like, what if you're like having sex in like weird positions, or like a bit of bondage and you're like, tied up, upside down. It's just, it made me think like, is this something that the BDSM community know about.
Lauren Church
Oh, that's a, you know what, you're already challenging me, because I've never thought about that before. I think it's, yeah, I guess it highlights the need for verbal communication as well as non verbal. So, I'm guessing then you have to bring in like safe words and stuff, rather than being able to, to explicitly communicate using facial expressions.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Or having like, certain gestures that -
Lauren Church
Yeah, definitely.
Hannah Witton
That you know that you can read whatever like position that you might be in. I just find it fascinating because I think there's any, like, we wouldn't have known that about human communication, had people not been in space, upside down, communicating.
Lauren Church
Yeah, yeah.
Hannah Witton
And it's just interesting to, to me to be like, Oh, how, how does this impact what we understand about how we communicate on earth, and in relationships, and in like, and in situations like sex, where communication is so key to pleasure and safety.
Lauren Church
Yeah, definitely.
Hannah Witton
That point to me, it was just like, wow. And I think I've actually really tempted now to like, try communicating with one of us upside down and actually see what that's like.
Lauren Church
Definitely give it a go and let me know.
Hannah Witton
Like, can I understand your emotion here?
Lauren Church
Yeah. Well, if you think about it, like if someone like raises their eyebrows or something you say, like, if they're upside down, then you won't necessarily read that in the same way.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, cuz so much of it is subconscious.
Lauren Church
Yeah, yeah.
Hannah Witton
It's fascinating.
Lauren Church
Apparently, it caused a lot of tension very early on. But another thing with the kind of idea of people being upside down, is they have, storage on the International Space Station is really bizarre. Like, everything's packed onto the walls, everything has to be like velcroed, because you can't like put anything down, right? But they intentionally leave one side of each module clear to be like the floor, so that people have like this psychological thing of like, okay, that's, that's, apparently it was really unnerving that they didn't have a floor. So now they use that to like, orientate themselves and like, Okay, so that's the way that we're going to be when we're speaking to one another, because that's the right way up effectively.
Hannah Witton
That's so interesting, like, the things that our brains need to, like, feel secure.
Lauren Church
Yeah, yeah, it's just something that you're so used to, like ah, I'll just like standing on the floor is something that you never think about. But if you take that away, suddenly, people are like, oh, my God, I don't, I don't know what to do in the space.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I'm really curious about all of these kinds of different things. But I want to know, like, cuz you're a master's student and learning about space physiology, and doing lots of like, research into into that and like, where along your journey of learning about all of these different things, did you first come across that there was gender disparity and gender differences and, and things that like, weren't being considered or thought of because a woman's experience or body was not being considered? Like, when did you first come across that there were issues?
Lauren Church
So I guess, this comes back to the idea of like, science generally is quite male centric. So generally in like medical studies, and everything, that the male body is considered the norm, or the standard, and then they're like, oh, it might be a little bit different in women. And I think I noticed that from a very young age, because like, I've always loved science, so I was like, in high school, and like, learning about research and stuff, and it was all like, old white men in the textbooks. And so I think that was something that that twigged very early on. And then you, I kind of went into medicine and realised it was still there, and then I learned about the fact that you could be a space doctor. And I was like, I wonder because this is like, you in space stuff, you have to think so far outside of the box, I was like, well, maybe, maybe they'll think about women as equals. And it turns out that that only happened quite recently. So I guess I came in with this kind of naive hope that like, oh, well, everyone's going to be really progressive. And then I realised that a lot of the problems that I'd seen before, still were persisting.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, you'd assume that, like, if you're working in an industry that is like thinking so far in the future, in terms of technology, that it would also be thinking really far in the future in terms of like, social issues.
Lauren Church
Yeah. And I, I'm gonna give them some credit, generally, in the space industry, it's, it's a lot better. And a lot of progress has been made. I mean, I think the 2013 class of NASA astronauts was the first one to have gender parity.
Hannah Witton
Nice, that's better than some industries.
Lauren Church
Definitely. Definitely. So they're doing okay. But you know, there's there's still steps that need to be taken. I think they've, as of December, there were 565 astronauts that have been to space and only 65 were women. So yeah, that's about 10% which is not great.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And what do we like know, currently, about how being in space affects women's bodies, different to men's. And we're talking about like, assigned female at birth.
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And assigned male at birth people here.
Lauren Church
So that's another interesting there have actually, there's never been an out trans astronauts, which I think would be a really good kind of step in terms of like representation and everything.
Hannah Witton
I wonder if HRT has like an impact on any of that, like, obviously we wouldn't know because, has a menopausal woman ever been to space as well?
Lauren Church
Yeah, that's another thing, like we just we don't know, basically like long term. But the thing with kind of the difference between people that assigned male at birth and assigned female at birth, women have an a slightly different radiation exposure kind of safe level. So we have different organs that are affected by radiation differently. So for example, like your uterus or our thyroids are slightly more susceptible to radiation damage, so, and in space, you get exposed to radiation coming from the sun, but also from the rest of the universe, that we get blocked out by our atmosphere.
Hannah Witton
Right.
Lauren Church
So we're kind of like safe here, but it's similar to the radiation that like causes sunburn and stuff. So you just get a kind of higher exposure when you're outside of the atmosphere. And it means that if women have lower kind of thresholds for that radiation, then they might be more likely to get cancers, based on the the amount of time that they spend in space. So their cancer risk might well be higher than men's. So even things like breast tissue, like I'm more likely to get breast cancer from being in space because of that radiation exposure.
Hannah Witton
Because there's more breast tissue?
Lauren Church
Yeah, and, um, so also the levels of oestrogen in the body can can affect that as well. So -
Hannah Witton
Ah, interesting because also, speaking of oestrogen, female astronauts have to take the pill to like, stop their periods, right?
Lauren Church
Yeah. So it's, it's not mandatory, but it's very, very strongly recommended.
Hannah Witton
Okay.
Lauren Church
As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been a female astronaut who hasn't taken the contraceptive pill while they've been in space
Hannah Witton
Do you know which pill it is? Is that the progesterone only one? So it's like the one that has no oestrogen in.
Lauren Church
I believe it's combined. So there's oestrogen there.
Hannah Witton
And then I'm assuming they just like take care continuously.
Lauren Church
Mmhmm, so -
Hannah Witton
That's so interesting, because some people like have different reactions to like, being on the pill and stuff, so I wonder if Is there like a thing where they like, you know, I guess, like, you train for months as part of that training, like, being on the contraception and seeing how you react?
Lauren Church
Yeah. So like, one of the hesitations that people had initially with women going into space was like, well, you, I mean, it's a very outdated view, but you take someone who's emotionally labile because of hormones, and then you put them in a, you know, millions and million dollar rocket and launch them into space. But I think that is part of the the kind of protocol that they go through before they launch. Like they, they see how the pill affects them and make sure that that's kind of compatible with them being able to do the work in space. But, for example, like some people breakthrough bleed, you know, like what happens if that happens in space? So -
Hannah Witton
What does happen?
Lauren Church
Well, that's the thing, like blood flows differently in space, because clearly, there's no, you can't flow down. So I would assume that tampons are the best way to deal with that. But it's interesting, the first American woman in space, Sally Ride, who, by the way, is an LGBT icon. So, but yeah, she was going to space for a week on the space shuttle, and the engineers had to work out what to send with her and they will then they were like, is 100 tampons okay? And it's a week! You know, and they were like, oh, just -
Hannah Witton
Was she, was she even due on her period?
Lauren Church
I don't think so. But they were like yeah, 100 tampons, just to be safe. And I'm like, safe from what? You know.
Hannah Witton
Oh, wow. I guess it's just something that like, would never have been considered before like, like one deal with periods in space if you're going to have a period and space, but then also like, you know, the the space stations and the shuttles and the Rockets aren't built for periods. So that, so you have to kind of be like, well, I'm not going to deal with it. I totally get it. If I was going to space I wouldn't want to have a period, thank you.
Lauren Church
Absolutely not.
Hannah Witton
I think it's interesting that they choose the pill though. Because then that's something that you like have to do every day. Like imagine trying to like take, like what if your pill like floated off.
Lauren Church
Yeah, or even just the thing of like, the way that they drink water. So like to take a like drink of water, while taking the pill, they have to use like straws and stuff because clearly you can't even have a glass of water because it would just float away.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I'm curious as to why, I'm sure they've got good reason, but my first thought when I heard that they have to take the pill was, why not like the implant? Or like the coil? Yeah, also can stop, potentially stop periods.
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
I'm just curious, like, imagine if you were an astronaut, and you're like getting ready to go to space, and you're like, so excited, like, you've been working your entire life for this. And then you have like the implant put in or whatever, because you know, you need to stop your periods. But it just turns out that your body, specifically, then, like bleeds heavier or has more regular, like more periods on it, you'd be like, what?!
Lauren Church
Oh, no. And I think that that's one of the reasons that the pill is generally like taken because I mean, that there's kind of less variability effectively with reactions to the pill, compared to the other other methods. But it's definitely something that like needs looking into because, you know, there was a, there was a scientific paper that was published in 2014, and basically, they concluded that, yeah, we should probably like research women's bodies in space. And I was like, oh, you think? You know.
Hannah Witton
So maybe it's not happened, but what do you think, like, if you're going to have a period and space, how do you best manage that? Like, what products do you use? How do you dispose of it? Like, what's, what's the situation?
Lauren Church
Well, I think the biggest thing to think about is hygiene, and you so products, like for example, the menstrual cup, or things like that might not be as effective. Because if you try and then remove that, then there's a risk of blood contamination.
Hannah Witton
Oh, yeah, you remove it, and then suddenly all the blood like, starts floating out.
Lauren Church
And then and then that's a kind of difficult thing to clean up, right. So because suddenly it can move in, like, all directions, and yeah. So I do think that that tampons are probably the best way to deal with that, because the effectively the wicking of, of the blood would be similar to how it is on earth anyway. And I mean, if we start thinking about, you know, NASA is talking about wanting to go to Mars, that journey is going to take at least six months, so we're gonna have to start thinking about these things.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Lauren Church
So you can't just, the longest journey to Mars, it could take up to 18 months, depending on where our orbits are.
Hannah Witton
Right, oh, okay. Wow!
Lauren Church
Yeah, cuz like, we don't orbit the sun at the same pace. So that at one time, we could be like, at the opposite side of our orbit to Mars, and then it would take a really, really long time to get there. So, but you can't have people just not having periods for 18 months. So it's something that we do need to consider and work out a proper solution.
Hannah Witton
They didn't talk about this in Interstellar!
Lauren Church
No, I know.
Hannah Witton
It didn't come up.
Lauren Church
Yeah, it's nice that they can just leave those things out. But in reality, you know, you need to start thinking about it. But another thing that that is interesting with the contraceptive pill is the increased risk of blood clots.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, especially the one with oestrogen in it.
Lauren Church
Yeah, exactly. And there was a report that was published, fairly recently, about a woman having a blood clot, in space, in her neck, which is a really dangerous thing to happen.
Hannah Witton
Oh my goodness, yeah. Then what did she do?
Lauren Church
Well, they they actually found it incidentally, like nothing really bad happened. They found it because they were doing a research study involving like ultrasound scanning of different blood vessels. And they found that she had like a quite big clot in her neck, and they think that it's potentially due to the increased risk of clotting with the combined oral contraceptive. And she was okay, they managed to treat it from, well, they managed to treat it with the medicines that they had on the space station. But, you know, if they hadn't found that when they did, it could possibly have ended a lot worse.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that's, that is wild, because you've got like all of the risks associated with the contraception in general, which are, you know, most mostly, like manageable on Earth.
Lauren Church
I know. And then you think like, if you were going to have something go wrong, being however many miles above the surface of the Earth is probably not the place that you want that to happen.
Hannah Witton
I'm gonna, I hate devil's advocate, but I'm going to be devil's advocate here. But I'm sure there are people who maybe have this view. But like, what would you say if it's like, people who are just like, well, why bother sending women into space, if it's just gonna be all of this extra hassle?
Lauren Church
I know, but if -
Hannah Witton
I don't agree with that, at all. But like that, that has just that did just come to my mind to be like, is it worth it?
Lauren Church
There are other issues that that maybe women don't experience in the same way. So, so one of the problems that they're investigating at NASA at the moment is some astronauts start to get changes in their eyesight and they think that that's because of changes in their brain. Like the, basically, on the ground, you have like fluid in your body like, generally, kind of in your legs or whatever. And then when you go into space, those fluids start to shift upwards because they don't have gravity holding them down. And they think that that maybe changes the pressure inside your skull, and it can press on the back of the eye. Now -
Hannah Witton
Oh my god. Wow.
Lauren Church
So, so astronauts, like have a tub of reading glasses on the space station. And they're like, oh, my visions worse today, I'll just like grab a pair of reading glasses. But this, that that process takes longer to affect women than it does men. So there are some things where women are better. And clearly there are other challenges with with sending women to space. So I think that, you know, I know you're playing devil's advocate, you don't agree with it, but there's definitely, definitely arguments for sending women.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, I am curious, has anyone ever had sex in space?
Lauren Church
Right, not officially.
Hannah Witton
Not officially, I love that.
Lauren Church
But there was a married couple who were sent to space, kind of by accident. So one of them was part of the backup crew. So they weren't supposed to be going. But then one member of the so called prime crew, the crew who was supposed to go was not able to. So a married couple was in space for about two weeks, I believe, on a space shuttle.
Hannah Witton
But with other people as well.
Lauren Church
Yeah, there were other people there. I think the shuttle crews are generally seven people, six or seven. But yeah, there was a married couple in space. Now, I'm not being funny if it was me -
Hannah Witton
You'd try. You would try, right?
Lauren Church
Yeah, of course. Just to be like, well, you know, we're not supposed to talk about it, but we were definitely the first, you know.
Hannah Witton
But also like, okay, yeah, married couple has been to space, but like, you don't have to be married to have sex. Who knows what else is going on!
Lauren Church
They were the only like, established like, couple, but equally, like you said, you know, they're there for kind of six odd months at a time on the International Space Station. So -
Hannah Witton
I wonder what it's like to masturbate and have an orgasm in space?
Lauren Church
Oooo, again, not something I thought about, but yes.
Hannah Witton
Any has have any astronauts like come out and said, yeah, I had a wank in space.
Lauren Church
Not that I know of. But again, like it well, NASA is generally pretty, like, we keep things very professional, like your role models for for kids, and whatever, so maybe don't talk about it. But I -
Hannah Witton
I wanna know, though!
Lauren Church
I have met quite a few astronauts in my life, and I might have, I don't know, am I brave enough to ask one of them?
Hannah Witton
Oh, my God, please let me know if you do.
Lauren Church
I will. So I, um, I work on a summer camp for kids who'd like, they work on designing science experiments to send to the International Space Station. And at the end of the week, like we pick a winning experiment, and that gets flown.
Hannah Witton
That's so cool.
Lauren Church
And so I, like, I've worked on, like developing these experiments, and I've literally just had two experiments launched to space last month. But, you know, like, we have astronauts who work on that summer camp and at the end of the week, like all of the staff, like go for a drink in the pub. So you know, I might I might buy one of them a couple of drinks and then see what they say.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I'd be really interested to know if anything to do with like, sexual wellbeing is part of their training, because obviously, there's so much emphasis put on astronauts mental health, right?
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
They get physical health, mental health, but sexual wellbeing is kind of like encompasses a lot of that kind of stuff and it does often get ignored as, I don't want to say like a need, but as something that, for some people, is a big part of their mental health or like, just of their wellbeing in generally.
Lauren Church
Yeah, definitely.
Hannah Witton
I'm just really interested to know if that ever comes up in like, either training, it's like, cuz I'm like, surely you're sending a bunch of adults into space. Like there must be some, in one of the sessions you have, be like, right, lads, and I'm just saying lads in general, but like, you might want to have a wank whilst you're in space, this is the protocol, you know
Lauren Church
This is this is how you do that. That's a classroom that you'd want to be on a fly on, like a fly on the wall.
Hannah Witton
I feel like as a, as a society, and as a culture, we like to ignore sex because we have this like fear of it, at least publicly. Like you're saying with like, NASA's like public image of being professional, and like family friendly and everything.
Lauren Church
For sure.
Hannah Witton
But NASA's, that's a smart organisation. I feel like they would have thought of this. And especially just like, they don't want to be in a situation where like someone's cum is all over the space station, and they don't know how to clean it up, because they didn't have the lesson on that.
Lauren Church
Yeah, exactly. I'm just, the first thing that came into my mind was just the mess. Like you, you'd have to clean it up like -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, not not with female astronauts though. Not if you've got a vulva.
Lauren Church
Exactly. So send women to space, like just women. Like let's do that.
Hannah Witton
It's safe, safer for us to masturbate in space. We can keep the space station uncontaminated and very tidy. I'm interested to know about a few other things as well. There's just like, so many weird things, and a lot of it, as listeners, you can probably tell is like speculation, or like, just there isn't, like research into it. And I'm curious about like pregnancy and babies, because I'm thinking like, way in the future, like if we have a little Mars settlement, or moon settlement or whatever.
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Obviously, ethically at the moment, we can't be sending pregnant women and babies into space. But what, what do we currently know, and like, what conclusions from that can we draw about, like, what might happen?
Lauren Church
So clearly, like you said, like, ethically, we don't want to send anyone who's pregnant, we don't want to send children into space, because a large portion of that is due to the radiation that we talked about before. But there have been studies on mice. So they sent pregnant mice to the International Space Station, to look at how the kind of foetus mice developed. And they, I think, on a large part developed reasonably normally. Now, that's not to say that that can be applied to humans at all. But you know, we're starting to make those, make those steps in terms of research. The interesting thing will be if a baby is born, and then grows up, for example, on the moon. So, I did a bit of like research into this because I was kind of curious. I was like, oh, well, what if like the first generation, would they look different to how we look? And yeah, and the moon has a small amount of gravity. And so you know, you you see videos from like, the Apollo era of the astronauts like hopping, and because they have a lot less gravity. But if a baby like grew up on the moon, then their muscles would develop differently.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Lauren Church
Yeah, so you use different muscles to get around. And the chances are, they'd end up like, kind of hopping like a frog because of the way that their muscles would develop, which -
Hannah Witton
Babies wouldn't crawl and then walk, it would be an entirely different process.
Lauren Church
They would have to, have to like spring. But I'm not being funny, like, can you imagine a toddler on the moon? Like you have to wear like, big spacesuits and stuff to go outside. But can you imagine a toddler just like springing off, like hopping off? You'd be like, oh my God, get back here right now.
Hannah Witton
Just like bye mum!
Lauren Church
So yeah, I just think there's a lot of like implications for that. But also then, if they tried to come back to Earth, like they wouldn't be adapted for life and 1g, like normal gravity. So I think there's there's a lot of stuff that needs to be considered there before we, before we have kids on the moon.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, but also like adults who spend like a prolonged period of time on the moon, or somewhere with less gravity than Earth and then come back as well, like, I wonder like, if there'd be some sort of muscle memory, or that it would be fine for them? Or like, at what point are you there for too long that you can't come back.
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
It makes me think about, like that final scene in Gravity.
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
I'm like here with the science fiction film references.
Lauren Church
No, go for it.
Hannah Witton
But I remember what, because obviously, the entire film is set in space, and so the entire film is set in like, she's floating around, and there's like, no gravity or barely any gravity. And then that scene where she like, finally gets back to Earth, and there's something about the way it was filmed, or the way that she's like acting, that you just feel the weight.
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And the way she likes gets up, and like, stumbles off. I was just like, oh, I feel heavy.
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And now I'm just like, imagining little floating baby toddlers.
Lauren Church
They'd be so confused as well, like, can you imagine if you didn't understand what was going on, and then suddenly, you were just really heavy for no reason. But yeah, like a lot of astronauts on the International Space Station, they lose a lot of bone and muscle mass. So they have to do like really intense rehab when they come back. Now, when we went to the moon, which was like 50 years ago, they only stayed for really, really short periods of time. So we don't actually know what that does, like long term, to the human body. So I think it's gonna be really interesting to see how that develops, like over the next couple of years, when we start looking at going back to the moon and maybe staying there for for longer periods of time.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. There's another thing that I read about, which I didn't know, but I guess makes sense, which is the astronauts pee is recycled.
Lauren Church
Yes. Yeah. That's -
Hannah Witton
Erm, this, this led me to like thinking about like, what happens if you get a UTI? Because like women are more prone to getting UTI's than men. But then also just like how how does one pee in space, I'm just so curious about all of these things?
Lauren Church
How do you pee in space? One word, vacuums.
Hannah Witton
Ah yeah.
Lauren Church
So again, like the whole flow thing is different. Like you can't, you can't like pee into a toilet. So there's there's kind of suction, which is a little bit kind of gross, but you know -
Hannah Witton
Is it like, sucking it out of you? Because obviously -
Lauren Church
I think it's creating suction like around. So it's, like, an enclosed kind of space for you to pee into. But yeah, that had to be redesigned when women started going into space. Because effectively, when they had men, they just pee into what was effectively like a condom, which doesn't work the same way if you've got a vulva. So -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, you have to sit down to pee.
Lauren Church
So it's it, that was a an interesting thing to like, overcome. But yeah, peeing in space is more difficult, logistically, than it is on Earth. But, like you said, like a lot of the water is recycled. There's like a kind of water recycling machine effectively on the space station. And they end up drinking it again. Now, I don't know psychologically, how you deal with that. But, um -
Hannah Witton
I think you'd be fine. I don't know, it makes sense to me.
Lauren Church
Yeah, so I mean, even the air that they breathe is recycled. So I guess you just kind of have to view it as, like, this is the sustainable way that we can keep living in space. But yeah, the point about the UTI is quite interesting, because I don't I don't know how they deal with, like, for example, you know, when you get a UTI, there's like bacteria that come out in the urine. So, you know, they -
Hannah Witton
Oh, is that then recyclable?
Lauren Church
It would have to be probably, like, filtered and treated in a slightly different way. But, um, I can't see that being something that they haven't thought about. And so, so yeah.
Hannah Witton
It's so interesting. There's just like, all of these elements of like, human life and relationships and like, you know, your your private life, that then suddenly it's like, okay, we need some tech to deal with this in space.
Lauren Church
Yeah, exactly. And I think that's one of the things about like, space medicine as a whole, is you have to work a lot with the engineers, and the people who design the spacecraft, because, you know, you go, well people need to pee, we need to design a toilet that works in microgravity.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Lauren Church
So it's a lot of like integrating the tech and the machinery that goes on around them, with putting the person in the centre of that.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Wow. And so the NASA said that the first woman is going to be on the moon in 2024.
Lauren Church
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
What's happening with them all like now in lockdown? Like, is this still happening? I mean, 2024 is obviously like, feels like ages away but I feel like in space terms that's like -
Lauren Church
It's nothing.
Hannah Witton
-that's soon, you know, it's happening real soon.
Lauren Church
Yeah. So one of the things that NASA has been developing is something called the Orion spacecraft, which they're going to use for trips around the moon and to the moon eventually. But I mean, NASA is a political agency. It's run, it's a governmental agency. And so every time you get a change in president, you get a change in the kind of the direction that NASA is taking. So things take a little bit longer. But again, like you said, 2024 is is like tomorrow, because of the the amount of things that you have to put in place. I mean, it's great that it's taken them 50 years between going to the moon and putting a woman on the moon. I think that's a that's a good one.
Hannah Witton
At this point. Is it like symbolic, do you think, having a woman on the moon? Or are there like other, like practical reasons, for us to be going back to the moon and it just so happens that we've got a female astronaut on that team?
Lauren Church
So they haven't, as far as I'm aware, they haven't selected the team that will be the team to go back to the moon yet. I think there is a symbolic thing, and the name of the mission is Artemis, who is the twin sister of Apollo. So yeah, there is a kind of symbolism there. The thing that that said frequently is, we're gonna put the first woman and the next man on the moon. And I'm, I feel like that's very much like playing up to the symbolism of it all.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Lauren Church
But I think that the reason that we're going back to the moon now is is it's close enough that we can easily like send supplies and everything, but and you can like evacuate people if anything goes wrong, but it is very much like a stepping stone for us testing out whether we can live on different planets. I mean, you look at like Elon Musk, who's going, you know, we're gonna live on Mars, during my lifetime. But there's, there's like several things that need to be worked out, before we can get there.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Lauren Church
The moons are good, like testing ground for those things.
Hannah Witton
I'm so excited that like that is, you know, potentially like happening in my lifetime. That's such a like, cool thing.
Lauren Church
It's so cool, and like when I tell people what I do, they're like, oh, do you want to, do you want to go to Mars then? And I'm like, I'm not, I'm not sure I want to. But what I want to do is like, help other people get there.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. So if you if you were given the opportunity to go to space, would you?
Lauren Church
I think, if I was like working at a space agency, which is like the end goal for me, right, and they were like, Lauren, we want you to like get on a rocket and just go up to the International Space Station for a bit. I'd be like, hell yeah. Like, where do I sign up? But I think there are so many people who like work their whole lives for that, you know, people train for years and years. I know, I know, several people who are like training to go up for astronaut selection the next time it comes around, and they put so much into that. So I think I'd almost feel bad if I was, you know, so I think I'm much better placed like behind the desk, like working with the astronauts, as opposed to being up there. Yeah. But, you know, you know, you never know, I could do it.
Hannah Witton
And I'm curious, finally, like, if you could change, like one thing, or improve one thing about like, gender equality within space medicine, what would that be? Like, what's the one area that you want to focus on?
Lauren Church
I think it is just a case of us not seeing men's bodies as the norm. I think you know, that when you look at studies and everything, they go, oh, we had 10 participants, nine male and one female, and you're, you kind of roll your eyes. And I think what I -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, you can't draw any conclusions from that.
Lauren Church
Yeah. So what I what I want is for women in space to never be considered as an afterthought. And that's, the shift is happening, but I don't think we're fully there yet.
Hannah Witton
We'll get there, hopefully in our lifetime. Fingers crossed. Oh, well, Lauren, thank you so much for chatting with me. This has just been fascinating. And thank you for dealing with grace, my questions about wanking in space.
Lauren Church
It's more than alright. It's something that needs to be thought about, you know.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I'll be the one to think about it, it's fine. Yeah, where can people find more of you? And you know, if they're interested in this topic, where should they go?
Lauren Church
So I am part of the little research team called the paraboladies. So you can find us on Instagram and Twitter with the handle @paraboladies, because we study spaceflights that are in the shape of a parabola, and we are all female, so ladies. But personally, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram @laurencspace.
Hannah Witton
Lovely. Well, thank you so much. And thank you, dear listeners, we hope you enjoyed this episode, bye! Thank you so much for listening to Doing It. If you enjoyed it, I would really appreciate it if you left a rating and a review. You can find show notes at DoingItPodcast.co.uk and do go follow us on social media and I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye. This was a global original podcast