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1969 demonstrative photos of a NASA study on cats to help develop techniques for astronauts to re-orient in zero-G (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/historyporn@lemmy.world

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[-] PugJesus@kbin.social 70 points 7 months ago

"I work at NASA!"

"Oh, man, that's so cool! What do you do?"

[sweats, thinking of all the hours spent dropping cats and taking photos of them in mid-air] "B-biostudies..."

[-] fogstormberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 36 points 7 months ago

I want this image framed

[-] MadBabs@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago

Also my first thought. What a great piece of wall art.

[-] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

It's definitely something that would fit in a museum giftshop.

[-] tryitout@infosec.pub 19 points 7 months ago

Why aren't there space suits with tails?

[-] HonkTonkWoman@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

Why aren’t there tails with space suits?

[-] tryitout@infosec.pub 9 points 7 months ago

I guess they haven't made that Sonic game yet.

[-] PaupersSerenade@sh.itjust.works 16 points 7 months ago

Found an article regarding this, TIL!

[-] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago

Yeah and then you get one in space and they can't do shit.

[-] Shou@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

What do you mean? The astronaut or the cat?

[-] GenderNeutralBro 1 points 7 months ago

Not the same experiment, but a related video of cats in zero-G: https://youtu.be/HwRdcv8azvk?feature=shared&t=225

I don't know what to expect when the concepts of "up" and "down" are simply removed.

As noted on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_righting_reflex , a cat's "righting reflex begins to appear at 3–4 weeks of age, and is perfected at 6–9 weeks". What happens if a kitten is raised in zero-G? I'd also be interested to see how adult cats adapt over time, but I'm not aware of any longer-term experiments.