At first this may seem outrageous, nay, utterly preposterous. But let us look at the supreme advantages gay men have over the sickeningly common, stereotypically heterosexual men currently employed.
- Gay men have better visio-spatial and dexterity skills. Gay men are better at dexterity tests than heterosexual men, and are indeed comparable to women in this arena. They are also better at horizontal and vertical spatial orientation tasks. Obviously then, they would be far better suited to such tasks as piloting the shuttle, repairing the Hubble space telescope, and so on.
- Homosexual men display a number of hypermasculine characteristics. This may seem like a strange qualification, but there have been concerns at NASA that the current crop of astronauts are too weak and submissive. When involved in joint missions with the Russians on Mir, the American astronauts were forced into submissive roles, such as cleaning toilets and swabbing floors, whilst the Russians did the expert, relatively interesting tasks in comfort. One astronaut, John Blaha, was referred to as the 'bitch' of the station. NASA has tried to compromise by sending more butch astronauts such as Michael Foales without much success, but by employing homosexual instead, they can be sure that their proven hypermasculine characteristics (such as: More sexual partners, larger gonads, more testosterone, etc etc) will save the day.
- Gay men have more efficient brains. This is because the heterosexual man is strongly left brained, such that he is specialised towards simple reptilian tasks, but the homosexual man uses both sides of his brain equally, resulting in a superb, and highly efficient, synthesis. As the brain uses up to 30% of the energy consumed by our bodies, this means that they consume less food, and hence payloads on gay missions can be significantly smaller. As missions currently cost $100,000 per kilo, and NASA is trying to cost cut and do things smaller, cheaper, faster, we can see that the use of gay men exclusively would allow NASA to both cut costs and send more scientific instruments on future shuttle flights and missions to Mars.
- Homosexual men can be lovers. As we turn our ambitions towards longer space missions, we can see that the issue of sex in space will become important, and that it is unreasonable and even cruel to send men on long, protracted missions without romantic company. There have been suggestions that the men use inflatable girlfriends - Russian cosmonauts on Mir once requested such a solution. However, it is feared that using these contraptions on extended space flights can result in so-called 'doll syndrome' - where the astronaut begins to prefer the doll to real female company. This is clearly inhumane and cruel. Obviously the solution is to employ gay men, who can then safely love one another. Gay sex is also less emotionally demanding that heterosexual sex. Where females lie back after sex, wonder what the future holds and demand emotional attention, cuddling and so forth, men can report to duty almost immediately, such is their perfunctory attitude to sex. Men seperate sex and emotion, where women do not. This is a great advantage.
- Gay men are resistant to alienation. Space is an unforgiving place, where men must work alone without human comfort or variety for many lonesome hours. The typical gay man has faced such privations throughout his lifetime, as they are oppressed in our society from birth to death. What better way for NASA to get people used to this terrible affliction, the one affliction all of us fear more than any other, than to employ gay men?
- Gay men are better housekeepers and are tidier. This means that for extended space flights in zero gravity they should be much better at avoiding the problems that slobby heterosexual men are well known for. They have better personal hygene, which means that they are less likely to suffer from disease.
- homosexual men have better interpersonal skills. Thus we can see that they are much more suited to getting on with each aother, and sensing interpersonal problems before they even occur. In the wilderness of space this is extremely important.
- Spacecraft with gay occupants would need less radiation shielding. The first sign of radiation poisoning is that you hair falls out and longer term effects include the loss of reproductive ability. As gays are unlikely to reproduce, and also are obsessive when it comes to waxing and shaving, and indeed defoliation of all sorts, we can see that radiation poisoning will have no effect on them. This will allow the space craft to be much smaller, lighter and faster.
- Gay men make better cultural ambassadors. The mark of any advanced society is that it is tolerant towards homosexuals. If one looks at the Ancient Greeks, and in particular the Spartans, one will find that they positively encouraged homosexual relations. Indeed, the Spartans had their men living in dormitories, from birth till the age of 30, and the whole army and society was based on homosexuality. Heterosexual relations were strictly controlled, and it is thought that the Spartan army was so fearsome because the men truly loved and fought for one another. If aliens should happenstance upon our ambassadors to the stars, they should be impressed by our civilisation's cultural equality and social tolerance. They will then surely be more likely to trade us advanced technology for the better of all Mankind. And should, as has been mooted, the aliens wish to sexually expirement upon our brave pioneers, then the astronauts should find it far less stressful, already used as they are to alternative sexual behaviour.
Precedents
Analogous to the issue of space crews being homosexual are submarine and Navy crews. In times past, navy crews would have a so-called 'pegboy', who would sit on a one legged stool the wrong way round in order to keep his rectum properly distended during the day, and then be used for services during the evening. Submarine crews, which have often spent months at a time at sea, have also had notable instances of homosexuality. The first example is inhumane, and the second probably caused much strife and splits in the crew, but nonetheless it shows that homosexuality does historically play a part in important and critical missions. An all-homosexual crew would surely be better equipped, and not have the tensions and guilt that occur when otherwise straight men become homosexual out of desperation.
Reading this, you may well ask "Why not just use women for the task?". The answer is simple - women are too emotional and weak, and are not as skillfull spatially as gay men, though they do share their talents in dexterity and language (important for effectively communicating with each other and mission control). There may be a case for lesbians however- the only problem here may be their physical weakness.
These problems have not manifested themselves until now because we have barely been outside our cosmic neighbourhood. But it is clear that the deviant working conditions of space require deviant workers, and so as we turn towards the stars, it seems, to this observer at least, that the future lies with the gay.
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