During the month of July, several social media posts claimed that NASA banned astronauts from masturbating in space. However, even though the content is fake went viral. It all started with a joke on a podcast hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien.

Similar statements also reached some journalistic publications, as was the case of New York Post article titled “Astronauts Shouldn’t Masturbate in Zero Gravity, Says NASA Scientist”. It was all a misunderstanding, which was later corrected by the publication itself.

The first version of the article from The New York Post, published on July 22, 2022.

The rumor originated in one of the episodes of the humorous podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend”, titled “Space Porn”. On the July 21 episode, the day before the first posts appeared, hosts Conan O’Brien, Sona Movsesian, and Matt Gourley guest starred as Smythe Mulikan, a NASA mechanical engineer in Houston, Texas.

During Muliken’s interview, Conan O’Brien asked the engineer if he ever he had sent pornography into space. The answer was simple: “No, none of that.”. But the conversation did not end there. A series of jokes on the subject followed. Conan insisted again and asked what it’s like to watch porn in space. The answer that he got, and that caused all the buzz, did not come from Mulikan but from one of the hosts. “At least three female astronauts can get pregnant by the same man in a single session” joked comedian MattGourley. Several publications would end up erroneously attributing these statements to the NASA engineer.

Truly, NASA’s rules on masturbation in space are not known. An article published by the space agency indicates that the absence of gravity has an impact on blood flow. However, the publication does not mention what happens in the case of male masturbation, nor does it indicate what the rules are for its practice during space missions.

conclusion

There is no NASA publication that prohibits astronauts from masturbating in space. The information that went viral on social networks is false. It all started with a joke from comedian Matt Gourley, during the podcast episode “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.” During the interview with Smythe Mulikan, the space agency engineer said that there is no pornography in space. As for masturbation, he did not comment.

Thus, according to the Observer classification, this content is:

WRONG

In the Facebook classification system this content is:

FAKE: the main content claims are factually inaccurate. This option typically matches “false” or “mostly false” ratings on fact-checking websites.

NOTE: This content was curated by The Observer as part of a fact-checking partnership with Facebook.