IT SEEMS A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE TURNING to space to jump-start their sex lives. Look around and you'll discover that mankind is on the cusp of a New World Sex Order. Though sex in space is still only theoretical—no one seems to know for sure if it's ever happened—the marketplace is already in motion. Inventors are busy devising harnesses, cribs, and other contraptions—a matériel arsenal of so-called "NASA sutra"—to make celestial sex more feasible. Conferences are being held, and scientists are sciencing: They're testing sperm virility in zero gravity, contemplating the optimal sexual orientation for crews on long-term missions, and investigating whether abstinence makes astronauts go postal.

For a sexonaut with cash, a growing collection of travel outfits—from Germany's Space Travellers to Japan's Spacetopia—are gearing up to provide the flights. In Kazakhstan, you and your playmate can, right now, blast into the cosmos on a Russian Soyuz rocket, where you'll dock with the International Space Station for an eight-day stay in orbit. Cost: $20 million each. So far, only four tourists have made the trip.

The more budget-minded might consider Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's latest endeavor. In 2009, from a spaceport in the Mojave Desert, Virgin spaceships will supposedly begin blasting passengers 350,000 feet up to a suborbital altitude. Here, at the edge of space, you'll have at least five minutes of weightlessness to get funky. Airfare will be $200,000 per person. Another company, called Rocketplane Kistler, will sell similar suborbital jaunts that will launch from a 3,000-acre spaceport an hour west of Oklahoma City beginning in 2009.

If you think blowing thousands of dollars for a few minutes of weightless ecstasy sounds stupid, don't tell 32-year-old George Whitesides, the executive director of the National Space Society, a nonprofit dedicated to what he calls "the creation of a spacefaring civilization." George and his wife, Loretta, who married on Labor Day weekend 2006, postponed their honeymoon until Virgin Galactic is ready for takeoff. They've ponied up $400,000 to be the first honeymooners in space.

The Whitesides may be the first galactic newlyweds, but they won't get a private room. That's why others will want to make a reservation on the $500 million orbiting-space-habitat project envisioned by Robert Bigelow, the entrepreneur who founded Budget Suites of America. Bigelow is courting large institutions to lease parts of his complex for general scientific research, but he'll also rent to hotels that want to promote space vacations. (Added bonus: He's even put the name of the complex up for sale, so guests could find themselves staying at the Trojan Brand Condoms Space Resort.)

I ask Bigelow by phone if space sex is part of the plan.

"We can accommodate a variety of activities onboard," he tells me.

"Does that include space sex?" I ask.

"Nature will take its course," he says.

Grand opening is slated for 2012. There's no price yet, but filling rooms shouldn't be too tough: At least two dozen private ventures are developing rockets and rocket technology that will slash the cost of putting humans in orbit.

These brave, sexy souls will need proper boudoir equipment, and a space architect from Los Angeles named John Spencer is determined to see that they have it. In advance of the day when weightless boinking becomes routine, he's designing the necessary habitats and gizmos.

"Space is a very dangerous place," says Spencer, adding that spacecraft are sterile and cold environments. "You have to make them feel sensual so people are comfortable—and, of course, there has to be booze."

Sam Coniglio, vice president of the Space Tourism Society, has resolved the cocktail conundrum by crafting a zero-gravity bar glass. "Right now, astronauts have to drink out of those ugly tubes that look like sippy cups," he says. His invention is a sleek, curvaceous vessel that's perfect for holding that cosmic cosmo.

After tossing back a few cold ones en route to Uranus, future sexonauts might be able to plunge into a zero-G Jacuzzi. Without gravity, water forms into perfect orbs, so a weightless Jacuzzi would hover like a giant soap bubble. "You could have an eight-foot sphere of colored water in the center of the room, warmed from the inside, and people could dive in and float around," says Spencer.

As for the sex act itself, it may require third-party tech support. "Sex in space is going to have to be choreographed," says Jim Logan, a physician and 17-year veteran of NASA, where he was chief of flight medicine for the shuttle program. "Otherwise it's just going to be a wild flailing."

The prevailing workaround is the Three Dolphin Technique, proposed by sci-fi author G. Harry Stine, who claimed that dolphins mate in threes: A male and female pair off while a third nudges the couple together to avert coitus interruptus.

Another possible alternative to ménage à trois is the Snuggle Tunnel. Created by Coniglio, the tunnel is a rigid plastic tube about four feet in diameter and eight feet long. One end will be affixed to a window portal (for a starry view), and 360 degrees of quilted velvet cushions will pad the interior. Once inside, a couple can go at it without worrying about drifting apart.

If free-floating fornication is your style, Vanna Bonta, an actor, screenwriter, poet, and self-made space-sex guru, has fashioned the 2 Suit. "It's made of a very lightweight fabric that balloons out, and you're enclosed inside with your mate," she explains. "If you don't want to struggle to be together, the 2 Suit is for you." Unfortunately for Ashley and me, the suit is still a work in progress.

Of course, there's always the no-frills method: Get naked and hang on, preferably with help from belts and straps. "Bungee cords or Velcro will be the easiest way to go," says Bonta. "They'll be standard issue on your flight suit so you can attach yourself to your partner. As long as one of you is stationary, leverage and thrust is possible."