Rats in space!

NASA has bold plans to ... send rodents into orbit 12

A while back I blogged on the folly of NASA's Moon-Mars program, and how it's killing real science the agency could be doing. Yesterday I received an email from NASA alerting me to a new funding opportunity:

This National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Announcement (NRA) solicits research proposals to conduct studies utilizing rodents flown onboard the Russian Bion-M1 spacecraft. The Bion-M1 mission will launch an unmanned automated spacecraft carrying a biological payload into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Launch will occur at Baikonur, Kazahkstan in September 2010. The rodents on the Bion-M1 spacecraft will be exposed to spaceflight conditions for approximately one month, approximately 50% longer than any previous flight with rodents.

Well, I take back everything I said before. Clearly, NASA is showing its commitment to doing really relevant research.

And talk about inspiring! This mission pushes back the frontiers of rat spaceflight by sending rats into low Earth orbit for an amazing ten days longer than previous missions. I can't even begin to imagine the high-tech spin-offs that will come out of this: rat-friendly velcro, cheese-flavored tang, rat-sized MRI machines ...

And who cares about launching another satellite to study the Earth's climate? Who needs that? Or sending a robot to a moon of Jupiter or Saturn ... yawn. When I think of "to boldly go," I think of rats in space.

Michael Griffin: Once again you prove that five masters degrees make you a genius!

Andrew Dessler is an associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University; his research focuses on the physics of climate change, climate feedbacks in particular.

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  1. jfleck Posted 9:25 am
    06 Dec 2007

    the self-referential nature of space researchAndrew -
    I cut my journalistic teeth covering NASA's unmanned planetary missions, so I acknowledge a bias up front against the human space flight program. But one of the things that this example makes crystal clear is the self-referential nature of this sort of space research. We send creatures into space (human or otherwise) in order to gather data about what happens when we send creatures into space.
    But the whole entrenched nature of the enterprise makes it impossible to accept the fundamental thing we have learned from all that research - that space is an expensive and dangerous place for creatures.

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  2. caniscandida Posted 5:54 pm
    06 Dec 2007

    animal experimentationThis kind of scientific experiment is ethically objectionable.  It is the kind that sounds like this: "Let us see what happens to them if we make them do this!"  It is just a couple of steps above the absolute bottom, the kind that sounds like this: "We know that this will kill them, but let us see how long it lasts, and how painful it is!"

    Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

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  3. Icelander Posted 10:55 pm
    06 Dec 2007

    Either/Or PropositionsI will never understand why people have a problem with NASA's $28 billion budget or $5 billion a year being spent on manned space flight, but not balk at the DoD's $1,000,000,000,000,000 budget.
    Why not decommission a few dozen nuclear weapons to pay for the new climate satellite?

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  4. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 1:10 am
    07 Dec 2007

    The rats will probably escapeand NASA will spend millions to design a better mouse trap. A guy with five masters degrees is the ultimate professional student, or an egomaniac.

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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  5. rmcleod Posted 2:45 am
    07 Dec 2007

    EthicsThis would seem to cross the boundaries of ethical animal testing in science.  I mean, the rats will die, it's not like they are going to be returned to earth.  We already put humans in space for half a year, so what is this month-long experiment going to tell us that will help save human lives?  I doubt this would get past any ethics review board at a university or research hospital.  
    Like so much NASA's human spaceflight program does, this seems to be on the same intellectual level as the baking soda and vinegar volcano at a high-school science fair.

    --

    entropyproduction.blogspot.com

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  6. mat Posted 4:16 am
    07 Dec 2007

    yes, yes, but....well, actually, Griffin is between a rock and a hard place. blame Congress and the Iraq war. you can't do space exploration on a budget. Bush/Chaney-ites and their followers want war, war, and more war to support their friends. what's climate research got? nobody with clout or vast money reserves.
    despite all the PR, America does not have the money to support a return to the Moon and a grandiose mission to Mars. we can't even agree to fund health care the right way, let alone support poor children.

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  7. freeztar Posted 5:33 am
    07 Dec 2007

    Science and Public IgnoranceThis article is a good example of the general public's ignorance of science. NASA is soliciting research proposals, which means we don't even know what they will be studying yet. A bit quick to call this ridiculous don't you think?
    Have a look at this article from CNN, a decade ago.

    "The "rat astronauts," all between 5 and 15 days old, had to be age-specific because scientists wanted to study critical periods in neurological development. An advantage to using the rats is that they develop much more quickly than humans in certain areas. A rat, for example, develops a nervous system in three weeks that would take years in a human.
    Scientists aren't sure what to expect when the rats return to Earth, but they hope they will provide clues to how the most complex organ in the body develops. "We really don't understand a lot about how the brain develops," said William Heetdeerks of the National Institutes of Health.
    Scientists believe neurological development in microgravity will be different than on Earth. "If you don't have the influence of gravity at such and such an age, even when the animal comes back to earth, it will be a space animal and it may never be able to re-adapt its nervous system to earth." Heetdeerks said."
    That is important research if we plan on putting humans in space for LONG periods of time. NASA does not just sit around and come up with kooky ideas to try. Every mission has to have relevance to justify the price tag. They do not have an unlimited budget.
    As far as atmospheric studies go, NASA is already on it.

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  8. caniscandida Posted 5:43 am
    07 Dec 2007

    "ridiculous"?No, not at all.  This is deadly serious.
    Do we know at this point who will be apologizing to the young rat-astronauts and their parents, when they return from space as "space animals," ill-equipped to cope with life on Earth?

    Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

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  9. freeztar Posted 6:38 am
    07 Dec 2007

    Exerimental rats and PETA-esque emotionsI hate to tell you this and break your bubble of naivity, but there are countless rats all over the world being poked and proded as I write this. Why not go after those folks testing hair spray on rats rather than demonizing truly scientific understanding.
    I suppose you'd like to go in place of the rats? ;-)

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  10. caniscandida Posted 7:34 am
    07 Dec 2007

    naivete' vs. ethical obtusenessOf course I know, Freeztar, that countless rats, and other animals, are even now being poked and prodded, and far far worse, by countless other animals who smugly think they have every right to do what they are doing.
    Where does that ruthless, obscurantist, question-crushing tradition in Science come from?  Or, is it still possible that sometimes scientists are indeed allowed to ask questions?

    Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

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  11. PBrazelton Posted 7:47 am
    07 Dec 2007

    I think everyone's missing pointEthical and financial considerations should be set aside knowing that "ratstronaut" will be a household word soon.

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  12. freeztar Posted 1:04 am
    10 Dec 2007

    Ethics and why we use animals in experimentsI know what you're saying canis. I'm not trying to be "ruthless" and I'm sure most serious scientists are not. It's an ethical debate and as such we may have to agree to disagree.
    The point I was trying to make in the last sentence of my last post is that we use rats because it is more ethical than using humans. To someone who sees all life as equal, I see the dilemma. Nonetheless, if a researcher came to my house and told me he was taking me to a lab to test a new cancer drug and that I would likely die from the experiment, I would be quite sad that it was me instead of a rat. It puts it in perspective when you think of it this way.
    As unfortunate as it is, at this point in medical research we need "guinea pigs" of some sort. Hopefully in the future we will have sophisticated computer models that can take the place of rats and other animals, but we are not even close to that yet.
    So NASA sending a rat into space to test future effects on humans, though not without ethical issues, is a valid experiment imho. I know it seems humorous at first glance and as such is subject to attacks from those not fully understanding the purpose, but if you follow this develop I think you will find it not so silly afterall.  

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