As the title reads, the stir crazy Russians have had enough of India and America pulling out the big guns in space. India one upped NASA by discovering water on the moon, so USA did the typical American thing by discovering water harder and faster by launching a rocket into the moon. That mission effectively bombed the shit out of the lunar surface kicking up dust to be analysed. Good ol’ Yankees.
Russians have had enough of monkeys playing accordions however (is this a Russian thing? lol) and decided its time to shoot them off into space to discover the red planet face to face. They first sent the primates into orbit in 1983 aboard the last Bion flights. Personally I am OK with sending animals into space, animal cruelty doesn’t enter the picture. I would rather it a monkey than a human.
But would could they possibly achieve from sending a monkey as opposed to a robot? I am sure there is a sensor available or a robotic arm that could do anything that a living creature could do, lacking the higher intelligence of a human. The entire experiment is estimated to take 520 days to complete, round trip. The monkey would be accompanied by a robot, in what appears to be a tragically comical mix-up of 2001: A Space Oddity. Lets just hope for the monkeys sake that computers name isn’t HAL.
Just for kicks some other notable events that have taken place involving shooting animals into space aboard rockets were Laika the dog, Ham the chimpanzee and miscellaneous rats & newts. Good times for all!
Now lets stop exploring space for a year or two, fix up Earth, then continue on our merry way! The fascist leadership on the planet is blatantly obvious when you start to consider the cost of one of these experiments compared to some basic shelter and food for the homeless. But yeah just keep firing monkeys into orbit – nice.
citizen_smith
