Chickens Hatch Aboard Chinese Space Module

Buzx writes: "It seems China is closing in on her goal of joining the small club of space-faring nations. Three chickens hatched aboard a Shenzhou space module after seven days in orbit. This reminds me of the U.S.'s experiments with monkeys (anyone remember Ham?) and the USSR's space dog, Laika."

Comments

only 3 hatches out of 9 eggs

[!splut]

It seems that China sent up 9 chicken eggs, but only three hatched. And of course, as is China's want, they are keeping ominously quiet about what became of the other 6 eggs. I get kind of annoyed about their tendency to never admit their failures, no matter how minor, unless someone else breaks the story first and they need to do some damage control.

They're using the survival of the eggs to tout their life support system. But for all we know those other eggs came back scrambled, or horribly mutated into monster chickens. If they want the rest of the global community to be impressed with their space program, they ought to be a little more forthcoming with their data, success or failure.

Re:only 3 hatches out of 9 eggs

[Dolohov]

Most chicken eggs do not hatch into chickens (This is the origin of the advice, "don't count your chickens before they hatch"). Further, there's no guarantee that they'd hatch at all, given the G-forces of launch. Racism aside, this is an honest acheivement for a country making its first steps into space.