kallis@pen.DEC (07/15/85)
The question of whether a woman or other mammal could conceive in "zero g" is easily answered without having to make a "Rabbit Test": 1) Most human activities have been tested in negative gravity (e.g., you can eat and swallow upside down; drinking water upside down has been a folk remedy for curing hiccups for more than a century). 2) Spermatozoa swim to their target. 3) Fetrilized eggs attach to the uterus without help from gravity. 4) The developing zygote/embryo/fetus is in a sac of amniotic fluid that effectively puts it in as "weightless" an environment as astronauts-in-training do when skindiving. The chemical exchange across the placental link is not dependent upon gravity. It's possible that there might be complications, but I rather suspect not. Don't forget that humans come from a billions-year-old evolutionary chain that goes back to "weightless" sea life, and there are a lot of safeguards buolt in. Steve Kallis, Jr.