Forecasting Reproduction in Space

As long-duration spaceflight becomes reality, health for astronauts grows increasingly complex and urgent. While recent scientific studies consider the influence of outer space on reproductive physiology, science fiction has addressed issues of reproduction, ethics, and agency for centuries. The research project uses interdisciplinary methodologies to provide a scoping view of the issue of human reproduction in space, highlighting areas that need attention and identifying potential mechanisms to explore them. The project involves curating and analysing an up-to-date corpus of scientific and science-fiction literature to extract a dataset of key variables. Bayesian network analysis is then applied to this dataset to model relationships between variables and identify gaps and changes over time. Through this statistical analysis, the project aims to develop a predictive model for novel scenarios and asks how science fiction and science influence each other.