The other day, I was discussing with an acquaintance overseas the challenges of uploading a brain into an exoskeleton for long-term spaceflight. This may be necessary because human flesh and bones will not do too well with space radiation omnipresent. The human eyes will not be able to handle it, and there will be bone density loss, and eventually things just won't work out, we should expect their life expectancy, that is for long-term space travelers, to be severely limited if we use the current human form for our space travelers and explorers. Okay so let's talk about this controversial subject for second shall we?
My acquaintance mentioned the challenges of taking a human brain putting it into some sort of an enclosure, and hooking up the nerve endings to various robotic parts. If the brain was kept supplied with nutrients and oxygen, it could perhaps outlive the average human body, as everything would be regulated in exactly the appropriate amounts for longevity. However, he also noted that there is an issue with phantom pains, and we know this from amputees, as when they are missing a limb, they feel pain even though that limb isn't there.
Now then, imagine the challenges with all the nerve endings in the sexual organs of the human body. There are more nerve endings there than anywhere else, and this could torment the brain which is now out of the body, and therefore perhaps there needs to be some sort of connection to those nerve endings to provide a pleasurable response for the brain. The chemicals released from sexual stimulation are significant in the brain, and a human that has lived most of their life within a human body, now transferred into an exoskeleton will have challenges adapting for this reason.
Further, a human that has lived their entire life in human body has probably come to enjoy the pleasures of sex, and certainly wouldn't want to give up those activities. Therefore there needs to be a way to stimulate that part of the brain stimulating the chemical release involved in sexual activity via those nerve endings. It is my belief, after interviewing a few people on this issue, that there will be fewer volunteers for long-term spaceflight who'd be willing to surrender their human body until we solve this issue.
Although this is not a typical research topic for long-term spaceflight at NASA, it is something that we will eventually need to consider for obvious reasons. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
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