VBS.TV Blog

IRRADIATED MONKEYS

November 18, 2009
by GABI SIFRE

It’s been a while since NASA recruited our hairy cousins for space travel, but with all this talk of going to Mars, monkeys are back on the chopping block. NASA is looking for a few good squirrel monkeys to irradiate over the course of a few weeks. The experiment’s designed to determine how much radiation, ever present at high levels in space, primates can withstand as they travel to the Red Planet. Animals of the twitchy, sewer dwelling variety got juiced in earlier trials, so now NASA scientists want to move onto the expensive, human-like imports. It’s unclear whether the monkeys will actually be shot into space, but NASA’s been pretty biased toward human astronauts since the Apollo 11 days.
So what happens if these little critters survive the cancer test? They spend the rest of their days being pampered at Harvard’s McLean Hospital; one of the few medical facilities whose intake sheet lists at least half a dozen famous artists at any given time. Sounds like an awesome way to spend their monkey winter years.