NASA shoots sperm into space

- NASA will soon shoot sperm into space. This to do scientific research. The American space agency is curious how human sperm cells respond to weightlessness.

'Do you remember the first lesson about the flowers and the bees at school?' This is how NASA starts the announcement of a new project. The target? Answering the question whether semen writhes in the same way in space as on earth. In this way it can be investigated whether humanity can reproduce in space.

Gravity has an effect on the process of fertilization, but it is not yet clear how exactly it goes in space.

For fertilization, a sperm cell and an egg cell must be fused together. For this the sperm cell has to make its way to the egg cell. Although this process is extensively documented on earth, this is not the case for spatial fertilization.

In earlier experiments in space with sperm of bulls and sea urchins, it has been found that the fusion occurs more quickly with so-called microgravity, but that other steps in fertilization then proceed more slowly or not at all.

NASA sends a frozen cargo of sperm cells from people and bulls to the international space station ISS. There both will be defrosted well, after which certain chemicals will be added to trigger the movement of the cells and the next steps.

The astronauts compare how both types of sperm cells move, after which preservatives are added and the whole thing is sent back to earth.

Once back on earth, a thorough analysis follows, in which, among other things, the 'space sperm' is distinguished from semen that has undergone the fertilization process under gravity.

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