Religion is also very professional. It's far from trivial to become a priest and they have a quite extensive ethics policy.
Sure, sexual tension happens between men, but much less so - and they wouldn't be all fighting over a single resource.
We just need the next mission to be all female.
I'm pretty sure this isn't true.
The argument which I think is particularly invalid is not that sexual tension may exist -- it'd be ridiculous to negate it will probably exist -- but that women must be excluded in order to eliminate it.
Also, exactly which dangers to the mission do they foresee due to "sexual tension"? Unwanted competition? But said competition between men can arise from almost anything! Unwanted competition for a single resource? (Forget for a moment the inherent sexism of considering women a "resource") Easy fix: make half the team women, the other half men.
I am assuming they screen team members for psychological stability, professionalism and teamwork, right?
not easy fix. because sexual competition knows no bounds. If I want my genes to have the best chances of seeding mars, I best get more than 1 mate. Therefore so long as there is a chance of procreating there will be tensions/competition.
IMO the "easy" fix is to remove the possibility of sexual competition via castration of the whole crew. Easy, but no one would want to do it.
(Although I agree that this is a bullshit reason used to exclude women from anything. See also the Mecury 13 - a bunch of women who did the same astronaut tests as men, often outperforming those men, who were denied astronaut status because that could only go to military test pilots, and they could only be recruited from military fighter pilots, and they could only be men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13 http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html )
https://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/fun-fact...
I'm not saying its a valid reason to exclude women, but denying that the issue exists is not the best comeback to that argument.