Slashdot Mirror
Mice, Newts Retrieved After a Month Orbiting Earth At 345 Miles Up
The Associated Press (as carried by the Washington Post) reports that a living payload of newts and mice has been retrieved after a month orbiting earth in a Russian space capsule at an altitude of 345 miles, far higher than the ISS's orbital distance of 205 miles.
Says the story: "Fewer than half of the 53 mice and other rodents who blasted off on April 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome survived the flight, Russian news agencies reported, quoting Vladimir Sychov, deputy director of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems and the lead researcher. Sychov said this was to be expected and the surviving mice were sufficient to complete the study, which was designed to show the effects of weightlessness and other factors of space flight on cell structure. All 15 of the lizards survived, he said. The capsule also carried small crayfish and fish."
Radiation? Life support system malfunctions? Launch related problems? Bit more details would make it interesting.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
That headline should read "Mice, Lizards...".
Can you believe these animals survived? Who knows what they'll try next, maybe a dog or chimp! One day, humans might even be able to go into space!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
if you launch a thousand of octopi in a capsule far off... Would that spawn the Orz?
Another victory for the Cardassian Empire!
....but the Fish and crayfish didn't survive then!
There's no information given about the chordates and arthropoda in question.
That information might be classified.
Capsule loading checklist:
Mice? Da!
Fish? Da!
Towel? Nyet.
The lack of towel obviously caused many mice to panic, and die!!!!! (apologies to THHGTTG)
Enough is enough! I have had it with these m____________ lizards on this m____________ space capsule!
Also, given their skill in escapology, how many mice actually managed to make it off the ship?
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
At first glance, I thought it said "Mice, Nerds Retrieved After a Month Orbiting Earth"...
#DeleteChrome
Half of them survived the trip, so you can feel good about it. No mention that these creatures have been/will be slaughtered for studying them "on a cellular level".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Didn't he want to found a moon colony by the end of his second term?
sadly, the water floated out of the gold fish bowl.
the appropriate term is 'japonaught' or 'astronese'.
and chinks are chinese, you racist
A while back I found a good chart of radiation levels and from memory 300 miles up was the point where radiation levels were too high for permanent human occupation. I wonder if this was the cause...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Of course the lizards survived. How else do you think our glorious alien-lizard overlords survived the journey here?
The Wortlethorpe MUnicipal Moon Program was putting mice on rockets decades ago - I read about this when I was a kid.
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bion_(satellite) It's the 12th in a series of missions that have been (infrequently) flown since the 70's.
When are they going to do some experiments with centrifugal simulated gravity?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
I smell sequel!