(IR) Space research repeats experiments of 1950s

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

 

 

 

Space research repeats experiments of 1950s

 

TEHRAN, BROOKHAVEN--Iranian State Television on February 3,

2010 showed the launch into sub-orbital space of a missile carrying

two turtles, an intubated white rat, and several worms.

The Iranian State News Agency later said the capsule carrying

the animals returned to earth safely, but did not specifically

describe the condition of the animals, whose behavior was

reportedly monitored throughout the flight by video cameras.

" The turtles were red-eared sliders supposedly just bought

before the launch at a local pet shop, " elaborated HerpDigest editor

Alan Salzberg.

" The scientific arena is where we could defeat western

domnation, " exulted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But the spaceflight was a first only for Iran.

" This is not the first time turtles have been sent in space, "

recalled Salzberg. " On September 15, 1968, Russia sent the Zond 5

up with a variety of animals, including two Testudo horsfieldi.

They circled the moon three days later, and survived re-entry and

splashdown on September 21. The tortoises had lost about 10% of

their body weight, but remained active and showed no loss of

appetite. These turtles and their fellow travelers were the first

earth lifeforms to complete Moon orbit and return safely. "

The Iranian experiment most closely paralled the two

sub-orbital space flights survived by the Russian space dog Albina in

1957. Her flights preceded the November 3, 1957 launch of Laika,

another former Moscow street dog who orbited the earth several times

before she died of stress and overheating between five and seven

hours later.

Sputnik program scientist Dimitri Malashenkov revealed

Laika's fate in October 2002, after decades of reports that she

might have survived for as long as four days of her planned 10-day

one-way mission.

Said project director Oleg Gazenko in 1998, " The more time

passes, the more I am sorry about it. We did not learn enough from

the mission to justify the death of a dog. "

The Soviet propaganda machine made Laika probably the most

famous dog in history before discovering that millions of people were

more upset about her plight, isolated and doomed, than were

thrilled at the scientific triumph that she represented.

The world was then largely unaware that impounded dogs were

being experimented upon, electrocuted, decompressed, poisoned,

shot, or gassed by the tens of millions.

After the Royal SPCA and the National Canine Defence League

(now Dogs Trust) led protests outside the Soviet embassy in London,

Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev authorized the formation of the

Animal Protection Society, the first and only humane organization in

the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Animal Protection

Society was disbanded and supplanted by independent nonprofit humane

groups after the 1990 restructuring of the USSR into the present

Russian Federation and several independent nations.

The Iranian space feat added to widespread concern that Iran

might be developing both nuclear weapons and the ability to use them,

but as a purported prelude to human space flight did not impress most

observers.

 

Not the right stuff

 

To test the ability to send a human into space, scoffed

James Lewis, senior fellow at Washington-based Center for Strategic

and International Studies, " the obvious choice would be to send a

monkey. Worms in space serve no purpose, " Lewis told Associated

Press writer Ali Akbar Dareini.

John Paul Stapp, the first U.S. space research supervisor,

opposed animal use in experiments, and in 1946-1947 used himself as

the subject of rocket sled experiments designed to test the impact of

accelerated gravitational force on the human body.

From 1948 to 1963, however, the U.S. made extensive use of

monkeys and chimpanzees in space research, before concluding that

the most useful studies used actual human astronauts. Thirty-one

former NASA chimps were retired to Primarily Primates in 1997, and

the remaining 226 chimps plus 61 monkeys were acquired by the Center

for Captive Chimpanzee Care in 2002. The $3.7 million acquisition of

the former NASA primate colony was partially funded by In Defense of

Animals.

Yet, 47 years after NASA abandoned primate use, NASA is

reportedly funding a proposed study at Brookhaven National

Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility on Long Island,

which would intensively irradiate 18 to 28 squirrel monkeys. Alleging

that the study would be redundant, anachronistic, and inhumane,

Defense of Animals, the International Primate Protection League,

and PETA have mobilized opposition to it.

The Brookhaven monkeys would receive gamma radiation equal to

what astronauts might experience during a 3-year journey to Mars and

back--in one burst, which does not resemble the prolonged low-level

exposure that space travelers would get, PETA research supervisor

Justin Goodman recently told Scripps Howard News Service reporter

Ilana Strauss.

" There have been literally hundreds of government-funded

radiation experiments since the 1950s, " said Humane Society of the

U.S. director of program management for animal research Kathleen

Conlee. " This data is already out there. "

Conlee noted that HSUS executive vice president Andrew Rowan

" chaired a committee that was convened by NASA itself, " which

produced guidelines for experimental use of animals that would be

violated by the Brookhaven study.

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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