After spending 9 months in space, mouse sperm gave healthy individuals. In 2013, dried and frozen semen samples were sent to the International Space Station, and then returned in 2014. Scientists have found that cosmic radiation still slightly damaged DNA. But after fertilization on Earth, healthy offspring turned out and the mice grew into normal adults.
Researchers believe that this is an important step to reproduce other mammals and, possibly, humans. For this you need only canned sperm. We are discussing missions that can stretch not for years, but for generations. Therefore, reproductive technology will be able to provide not only the replenishment of the crew, but also animals. The analysis also took into account the peculiarities of the representatives of the water world. With mammals, the situation is more complicated, so the number of tests was limited. Scientists believe that the most important thing was to check the safety of sperm in space conditions.
But lengthy missions are not the only prospect for sperm preservation in outer space. We are not immune from natural disasters and space attacks. If something happens to the Earth, the Moon is an ideal candidate for storing sperm below the surface so that it can return the human form.
