"There's no official or unofficial evidence that there were instances of sexual intercourse or the carrying out of sexual experiments in space," Valery Bogomolov, deputy director of the Moscow-based Institute of Biomedical Problems told the Interfax news agency.
"At least, in the history of Russian or Soviet space exploration this most certainly was not the case," said Bogomolov. Rumours have persisted for years of secret Russian and American programmes to test the effects of weightlessness on sex but this has always been strongly denied by both sides.
"As for American space exploration, well, I just don't have the information to categorically deny that," said Bogomolov. "There are just anecdotal rumours which are not worth trusting," he added.
Published 22 April 2011, 12:22 IST