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Mice In Space
benmcgruer writes "Space.com is reporting on the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program. This international, student-lead, project aims to explores the topical issue of biological response to low gravity, specifically the 0.38-g found on Mars, by building and launching their own satellite, complete with 15 mice. NASA, Fark.com and Universe Today also have coverage."
Mice were the ones to build this planet.
Be nice to your lab rats.
I propose that instead of mice, we put rats in space, and launch Darl McBride to Mars!
I hear a Vogon constructor ship trundling in from the Oort cloud with hyperspatial bypasses on its mind.
Mice leaving the planet... what do the mice know that we don't?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Mice came back super intelligent...
...Mouse overlords...
Soon we'll know if mice can be trained to sort tiny screws...
Ok... lets move on!
After all, Jim Henson did similar experiments with pigs 20 years ago.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Logitech or Microsoft?
Oh. Those mice. Nevermind.
won't it be hard to use them? They'll tend to float off of the mousepad...
Ignore parent post. From /engineering :
"the Entry Descent and Landing system, developed at the University of Queensland, carries the payload safely back to Earth at the conclusion of the mission and protects it from heat and impact shocks during descent and landing"
Sorry to disapoint you.
The students will be using only female mice, says Wooster.
I guess they don't want to risk cosmic-ray enhanced population explosion on the offchance it might produce <obligatory simpsons reference>.
(for those of you blinking in confusion)
<obligatory simpsons reference>I, for one, welcome our new Cheese-Loving Overlords</obligatory simpsons reference>
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
What is Cal-Tech going to do to top this?
They, um.. have this rover-thing on MARS Perhaps you've read about it?
I used to have this payloader rocket that you could load an egg in. One day I was digging around the yard under rocks (like most 14yro boys do) and I found some newts. Hmm, astro... astro... ASTRONEWTS YEAH!
So being the unusually cruel kind of kid that pulled the wings off of flies, and pretended his magnifying glass was the death star at alderon over an ant hill, I began my devious little plan.
I packed up my rockets, grabbed a few C6-7 engines I had (I love the long delay) and headed out to the school on my schwinn with the newt safely in tow.
I set up the launch pad, did all my pre-flight checks (make sure the fins aren't unglued, ect) and loaded the little guy in my egg payloader.
5...4...3...2...1 LIFTOFF!!!
Pretending that I was in mission control, I started saying things to myself like "Ok Houston, we have liftoff, going to full throttle" "Booster seperation complete, deploying parachute" I hopped back on my bike too chase the red and white striped parachute down.
The wind had carried the rocket south off school grounds, it was an overcast day so there must have been some high winds. I must have followed it for a 1/2 mile or so before I lost site of it. Then I noticed the red and white parachute dragging the cone and body of the rocket around the expressway from the wind that was kicked up by the cars. Then the unimaginable happened...
A orange 1976 toyota celica came barreling down the road. I swear to god, the driver looked me right in the eye, looked back at the rocket, and made a beeline straight towards it. I watched in horror as the right front wheel drove right over the plastic payload bay. After the cars had passed, I walked over to my injured rocket, which was now just a mess of carboard tubing, some balsa wood, and a bloody flattened carcase of a newt encased in a polyetheline casket.
I never flew a newt again.
Are you pondering what I'm pondering??
Where are the mice going to go to the toilet?
I wouldn't want to be a mouse in low gravity with flatulence. I can picture it now...
[mouse propelled forwards]"Squeek"[splat!!]
Nup... glad I ain't one o' dem mouses
8-P
Especially when the skinny one answers to the name of Pinky and the fat one answers to the name Brain...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...