Dr. Alexander Layendecker

Alexander Layendecker, Ph.D. is the Director at the Advanced SpaceLife Research Institute, Member of the Advisory Board at Spaceborn, Member of the Board of Directors at the Space Tourism Society, and Combat Search and Rescue Pilot, 301st Rescue Squadron for the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

Alex is the Founder and Director of the Advanced SpaceLife Research Institute (ASRI) since 2023. ASRI is a Cape Canaveral, Florida-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization dedicated to studying and enabling human reproduction in outer space environments.

His research focuses on human sexuality and reproduction in off-Earth environments, the history of research in this area, and the research gaps that must be filled in the future to make long-term settlement of other worlds a viable possibility.

Read How Scientists are Grappling With the Challenges of Sex and Reproduction in Space and Sex in space and its implications for space tourism and settlement.

Alex has been immersed in the space environment in the Air Force, assigned to launch duty, and was simultaneously pursuing an M.A. in public health, and then at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. He was looking for a dissertation topic and decided that sex and reproduction in space had not received the attention they deserved.

“If we’re serious about discussions of colonization, having babies in microgravity — on Mars or other outposts of the Earth, then more needs to be learned.”

His general recommendation was that because NASA is reluctant to study sex in space, a private nonprofit organization, or Astrosexological Research Institute, should be founded for this research critical to human settlement of outer space. Read Star children: can humans be fruitful and multiply off-planet? Watch Sex In Space: The Big Bump and Sex in space | Interview with Dr. Alex Layendecker (Ep.69).

Alex published a chapter Logistics of Reproduction in Space in the living reference work Handbook of Life Support Systems for Spacecraft and Extraterrestrial Habitats. He is one of the Authors of Sex in Space: Consideration of uncontrolled human conception in emerging space tourism (Green paper for public consultation).

Read Is sex in space being taken seriously by the emerging space tourism sector? and Spaceport Joined the Subject Matter Expert Council of the Advanced Spacelife Research Institute.

In 2023, Alex was Organizer and Speaker at SXSW 2023 Panel Sex in Space: Sex & Reproduction Beyond Earth. A panel to discuss the growing research fields of astrosexology/space sexology/space sexual health research, and the issues surrounding humanity’s future efforts to reproduce in off-world environments.

Alex was Invited Speaker at NSS’s International Space Development Conference 2024 (ISDC) 2024 Together, Beyond! Conference speaking on Space Health.

Since 2017, Alex has been a Combat Search and Rescue Pilot in the 301st Rescue Squadron as a Mission-qualified pilot in the HH-60G Pave Hawk for USAF Combat Search and Rescue operations.

Between 2015 and 2016, he was Captain on Reserve Duty for the US Air Force Reserve. Before that, between 2012 and 2015, he was Chief of Adversary Space, 57th Adversary Tactics Group (USAF Aggressors) at Air Combat Command.

Alex coordinated and conducted academics, space weapons systems integration, and adversary threat analysis and replication for USAF Aggressors in support of Operation Red Flag, USAF Weapons School Mission Employment, and major U.S. joint/allied force training exercises. He also conducted live SATCOM, EA, and GPS testing operations as a Space Aggressor for major exercise support.

While there, he went to Afghanistan in 2014 as a Plans and Foreign Disclosure Officer in Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 for US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He conducted intelligence sanitization for disclosure/release to allied and foreign partners in concert with U.S. and Afghan justice systems.

Alex earned his Ph.D. in Human Sexuality with a focus on Astrosexological Research in 2016 and his Master’s Degree of Public Health (MPH) in Human Sexuality in 2013, both from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

In 2008, Alex earned his Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Humanities from the United States Air Force Academy and did Undergraduate Space Training at Vandenberg Space Force Base in 2009, earning him his USAF Basic Space Badge.

In 2017, he earned a USAF Basic Pilot Badge after he did Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base and Fort Rucker. He did USAF Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training for a Helicopter (SUPT-H) in the TH-1H Huey (Phase III). He also did Class SRO for 8-member SUPT-H student pilot flight, 23 FTS, USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) student pilot in the T-6A Texan II (Phases I & II), and Flight SRO for 13-member UPT student pilot flight, 8 FTS.

He earned his Master’s of Military Operational Arts and Sciences in Joint Warfare from USAF Air Command and Staff College in 2024 with a thesis on future USSF Space Rescue operations and their required framework.

Alex began his military career in 2009 as a Squadron Resource Advisor, Range Control Officer, and Forward Observer, and in 2010 as Combat Mission Ready Instructor on Space Launch Operations, at the 2nd Range Operations Squadron for Air Force Space Command. He continued in 2011 as Security Manager and Assistant Chief of Training on Space Launch Operations at 30th Operations Group.

Alex is a member of Humanity in Deep Space, an initiative designed to facilitate a planetary conversation and exploration of the intersecting issues and hard problems that are central to the successful transition of humans to a deep spacefaring civilization — from technology to design, food, the humanities, psychology, space and planetary ethics, economics, and education.

Watch Space Sex, Longevity, & Brain Injuries with Dr. Olivia Lesslar and Dr. Alexander Layendecker.

Listen to The Space Show Broadcast 4080 with Dr. Alex Layendecker, Sex & Reproduction in Space with Alexander Layendecker, and Alexander Layendecker and Egbert Edelbroek — Sex in Space — The Untapped Conversation.

Read about Space Sexology on Wikipedia.

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