Chapter 10: Monkeys are the craziest people
Theme: This chapter will describe the animal program conducted in conjunction with Mercury; the elaborate procedures developed for training and preparing the astrochimps for their flights, the results of the four flights which made use of animals, the disputes over the meanings of the data collected during the flights, and finally, the controversies which led to a committee of scientists appointed by the President recommending that sixty chimps be given centrifuge rides to determine their reactions to high levels of acceleration.
Before committing man in space, it seemed desirable to make sure that no hazards had been overlooked. It was important to demonstrate that all the equipment intended to support life would function as intended. This seemed logical, yet it was not easy. If an animal was to precede man in space, just what sort of animal would most closely approximate the human being? Each animal had its advocates among the scientific community. It was claimed that the pig’s internal organs were most like that of the man, and pigs were used in several drop tests. Unfortunately one crew left a pig lying on its back while they went off to eat, and found (as any good farmer knows) that a pig left lying on its back too long will die. Dogs also had their partisans -- in Russia they won out. However, there was a major drawback to dogs. They have the largest and best-organized political party in this country. The SPCA commands considerable attention from the press and respect among the legislators. In any case, the howls of dog fanciers following Laika’s flight made our own management quite sensitive to the use of animals.
The psychologists who were most interested in animal behavior problems were monkey advocates. The brains of these little animals most closely resemble those of a human being. In addition, their hands are well-formed to do tasks similar to those of the astronauts, like pushing buttons and pulling levers. These little beasts were not without their problems, however. All species of monkeys come equipped with a good set of teeth which they are not the least bit bashful about using. Moreover, while the young chimpanzees are as friendly and cuddly as babies, when they reach adulthood they become meaner and more irascible than a Scrooge. Moreover, they are quick and far too intelligent. They learn to open cage doors and untie knots. On one occasion an animal trainer handed a chimpanzee a banana just before he pushed the button to start the acceleration sled in which the ape was sitting. The ride was a jarring one and the animal came back to his cage bruised and battered. Feeling sorry for him the trainer gave him another banana, but the ape had learned what a banana meant, and the trainer got this one back squarely between the eyes.
Our engineers approached the animal flights with some nervousness. The first thing they insisted upon was that the animal be completely restrained. They wanted to be sure that he could not possibly touch any of the controls. This was taken care of by housing him in a small compartment of his own which simulated the astronaut’s pressure suit. Then there were major public relations headaches. What if an animal caught a disease and died while in the spacecraft for a reason that had nothing to do with space flight? A situation similar to this arose with the bio-flight program conducted by the Army and Navy when the monkey Able died while undergoing minor surgery for the removal of an electrode. The Army had some difficulty persuading the public that its death had nothing to do with the space flight. How far should the project go in protecting the life of the animal? Should all the precautions be taken that would be used with the man? This might mean playing it safe and cutting a mission short even though more data might be gathered at some risk to the animal. It was finally decided that essentially the same safety precautions and operational procedures would have to be used for the animal as for the astronaut, since the public would interpret the loss of the animal as an indication it was not safe for a man to fly. As biologists, many of us chaffed under this restriction. Since animals could not be used on shots which would not be recovered, we lost a number of opportunities to collect data. But this was just one of the penalties of working in the glare of publicity. We were not in the laboratory now, and could not use the same procedures that we would use in our own research.