Document 12-571-3570
Encyclopedia
Document 12-571-3570 is a hoax
document originally posted to the Usenet
newsgroup alt.sex
on November 28, 1989. According to this document, astronauts aboard space shuttle
mission STS-75
performed a variety of sex acts to determine which positions
are most effective in zero gravity. The document goes on to report that of the 10 positions tested, six required the use of a belt and an inflatable tunnel, while four were contingent on hanging on. The document also discusses a video record of the 10 one-hour sessions in the lower deck of the shuttle, and notes that the subjects added their own personal footnotes to help scientists.
Given that the real STS-75 mission occurred in 1996, 7 years after the text was published, the document is obviously fictional. The descriptions of heterosexual intercourse are further evidence that it is a hoax, as there were no women aboard STS-75. Nonetheless, many people have been fooled by this document and NASA has had to debunk it on several occasions. In March 2000, NASA's director of media services Brian Welch referred to the document as a "fairly well-known 'urban legend'".
This fictional document was rediscovered and widely publicized by astronomer and scientific writer Pierre Kohler, who used it as a major source about sex experiments in space in his 2000 book, The Final Mission. Kohler conceded in his book that astronauts are mute on the subject of human sex in orbit, even if they have conducted reproduction research on South African frogs and Japanese fish.
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
document originally posted to the Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup alt.sex
Alt.sex
alt.sex is a Usenet newsgroup that was popular in the 1990s. An October 1993 survey by Brian Reid reported an estimated a worldwide readership of 3.3 millions for the newsgroup, that being 8% of the total Usenet readership, with 67% of all Usenet nodes carrying the group and traffic of 2,300...
on November 28, 1989. According to this document, astronauts aboard space shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
mission STS-75
STS-75
STS-75 was a United States Space Shuttle mission, the 19th mission of the Columbia orbiter.-Crew:-Mission parameters:*Mass: payload*Perigee: *Apogee: *Inclination: 28.5°*Period: 90.5 min-Mission objective:...
performed a variety of sex acts to determine which positions
Sex positions
Sex positions are positions which people may adopt during or for the purpose of sexual intercourse or other sexual activities. Sexual acts are generally described by the positions the participants adopt in order to perform those acts...
are most effective in zero gravity. The document goes on to report that of the 10 positions tested, six required the use of a belt and an inflatable tunnel, while four were contingent on hanging on. The document also discusses a video record of the 10 one-hour sessions in the lower deck of the shuttle, and notes that the subjects added their own personal footnotes to help scientists.
Given that the real STS-75 mission occurred in 1996, 7 years after the text was published, the document is obviously fictional. The descriptions of heterosexual intercourse are further evidence that it is a hoax, as there were no women aboard STS-75. Nonetheless, many people have been fooled by this document and NASA has had to debunk it on several occasions. In March 2000, NASA's director of media services Brian Welch referred to the document as a "fairly well-known 'urban legend'".
This fictional document was rediscovered and widely publicized by astronomer and scientific writer Pierre Kohler, who used it as a major source about sex experiments in space in his 2000 book, The Final Mission. Kohler conceded in his book that astronauts are mute on the subject of human sex in orbit, even if they have conducted reproduction research on South African frogs and Japanese fish.
External links
- NASA Experiments with Sex in Space at Snopes.com
- Space sex hoax rises again