Overview
- An expert review published in Reproductive BioMedicine Online elevates reproductive health in space to an urgent policy issue, citing the expansion of private and longer missions.
- The nine-member team, including NASA research scientist Fathi Karouia and clinical embryologist Giles Palmer, describes space as hostile to reproductive biology due to radiation, microgravity and circadian disruption.
- Critical knowledge gaps persist for long-duration effects, with especially limited reliable data on male fertility and cumulative radiation exposure despite reassuring findings from short Shuttle-era missions for women.
- There are no widely accepted, industry-wide standards for managing fertility risks, inadvertent pregnancy or reproduction-related research, and commercial spaceflight operates in a regulatory grey zone.
- Assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF and cryopreservation are technically adaptable to space, the authors say, prompting calls for coordinated research, international ethical oversight and an industry framework before practices outpace regulation.