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Space Science

Mice In Space 221

Posted by michael from the crispy-critters dept.
benmcgruer writes "Space.com is reporting on the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program. This international, student-lead, project aims to explores the topical issue of biological response to low gravity, specifically the 0.38-g found on Mars, by building and launching their own satellite, complete with 15 mice. NASA, Fark.com and Universe Today also have coverage."
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Mice In Space More

Mice In Space

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  • Remember, folks (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:31PM (#8037541)
    Mice were the ones to build this planet.

    Be nice to your lab rats.
    • Mice were the ones to build this planet.
      Be nice to your lab rats.

      Eh? WHY? They're RATS, not MICE.

      On the other hand, be nice to any Lab *Mice* you might have the honor of associating with.

      On the Gripping Hand (anyone remember that one?) my first thought was "Lab [akc.org] x Rat ? What traits were they trying to achieve with *that* selective crossbreeding?"

    • Re:Remember, folks (Score:5, Funny)

      by n0mad6 ( 668307 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @07:03PM (#8037917)
      Ah yes, the insightfulness of Slartibartfast...

      I for one welcome our new non-Douglas Adams reading moderators...

    • Hpw much would a mouse weigh on mars? For that matter a human? I've seen those "If you weighed 150 lbs. on Earth you'd weight x lbs. on y". posters before, but now google is failing me and I can't find one :-/

      • Re:Remember, folks (Score:4, Funny)

        by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @07:20PM (#8038062) Homepage Journal
        Mars grav = 0.38 Earth Standard, therefore I postulate (pustulate?) 150 pounds * 0.38 => somewhere in the proximity of 25.8 kilograms {splat}.

        All Hail the Obligatory NASA measurement cross-standards reference.
    • Be nice to your lab rats.

      Especially when the skinny one answers to the name of Pinky and the fat one answers to the name Brain...

  • Eh, no. I'm sorry, the correct answer is "Mice in Space." Yes. Terribly sorry, you must try again.

  • Instead... (Score:5, Funny)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) * on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:32PM (#8037546) Homepage
    I propose that instead of mice, we put rats in space, and launch Darl McBride to Mars!

    • Re:Instead... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Carnildo ( 712617 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:45PM (#8037709) Homepage Journal
      launch Darl McBride to Mars!

      With or without a spaceship around him?
    • Yeah, it would make sense...he's already the ruler of a desolate and resourceless company, might as well give him rule over a desolate and resourceless planet. Then again, he'd probably sue us for stealing all of Mars's intellectual property.

    • Rats? (Score:2, Informative)

      by phorm ( 591458 )
      I hope you're not insinuating that Darl is related to rats? Being an owner of pet rats... I'll have to assure you that rats are quite intelligent and friendly... Darl is obviously unrated.
    • No, they should send pigs, they could save some bucks on the video coverage because they can use the intro from the muppet show!
    • I propose that instead of mice or rats, we put pigs in space [imdb.com].
    • Yeah. Let's immortalize Darl by making him the first person to "land" (hee) on Mars. I mean, it's not like he's already immortalizing himself *cough*Litigious Bastards [sco.com]*cough. :)

      Launching him *into the sun* might be a nice way to reward him for his tireless work, tho :) It'd also be a nice shortcut, as he's going to *fry in Hell* anyway....

      SB
  • I always wondered what happened to Benjy mouse and Frankie mouse :)
  • I hear a Vogon constructor ship trundling in from the Oort cloud with hyperspatial bypasses on its mind.

  • How much did those mice pay NASA in order to be launched into space. Shit! I knew they were needing money for the Mars mission, but I would have never thought that Petco would be sponsoring missions.

    • Re:One question. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 )
      It *would* be worth it if they were testing Nuclear Propulsion. At least that way they could measure the REM dosage that the mice received. If everything goes as planned, the mice would receive very little from the craft and land on Mars in a condition to begin other experiments.

      • OR, they could receive Massive doses of radiation causing them and their descendants to mutate into a race of Super powerful Mutant Monster Mice (on Mars)!!!

        So Be nice to your Mice. Because when the time comes to Welcome our new Super-Rodent Overlords, I for one, will be ready...

  • 15? (Score:1)

    by Jubedgy ( 319420 )
    So...is that a beowulf cluster of mice or what???

    This could be pretty interesting, it should function as the first real step towards a manned mission to Mars, rather than just blowing hot air about the subject. We have to start somewhere.

  • Makes me wonder (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:33PM (#8037570) Journal
    Mice leaving the planet... what do the mice know that we don't?

  • Simpsons stuff... (Score:4, Funny)

    by D-Cypell ( 446534 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:34PM (#8037580)
    Mice came back super intelligent...

    Soon we'll know if mice can be trained to sort tiny screws... ...Mouse overlords...

    Ok... lets move on!
  • Nuts to the white mice. Pigs...In....Spaaaaaace!

  • This is hardly groundbreaking (Score:5, Funny)

    by ENOENT ( 25325 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:35PM (#8037589) Homepage Journal
    After all, Jim Henson did similar experiments with pigs 20 years ago.

  • Fark != News (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:35PM (#8037592)
    If you think the message board on Fark is a legitimate source of news, you've been reading them too long.

  • Logitech or Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)

    by H8X55 ( 650339 ) <jason.r.thomasNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:36PM (#8037600) Homepage Journal
    Logitech or Microsoft?

    Oh. Those mice. Nevermind.
  • Will the 15 mice be the Glow-in-the-Dark type?

  • Hrrr. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mukaikubo ( 724906 ) <gtg430b.prism@gatech@edu> on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:37PM (#8037616) Journal
    I wonder how much of the data will be irrelevant because mice walk on four legs, not two, thus decreasing the bone loss?
    • I wonder how much of the data will be irrelevant because mice walk on four legs, not two, thus decreasing the bone loss?

      Bone loss isn't the only major health issue that results from lower gravity, it's just the most obvious one. The other major issue is loss of immune system function. Extended exposure to zero gravity leaves you with an immune system that's only slightly stronger than if you had AIDS, and unlike bone and muscle loss, exercise doesn't affect it.
    • It's a good question.. but why not expand it? Why can't we build a satelite for _humans_ to go into space and be acquainted with the low gravity environment, test out what it's like on is. We did this kind of thing with the shuttle and spacelab (
      The question is, why are we sitting around talking theory about something, sending mice into space and watching them, instead of sending human volunteers to do something we know is risky, but as safe as we can do in that environment?

      On a sidenote: mice on mar

  • Mass (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tr0llb4rt0 ( 742153 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:38PM (#8037621) Homepage
    Reduction of gravity means eduction of weight not mass.

    Surely to get a significant reading you'd need a mammal of equivalent mass and biology.

    The weightlessness experience of the MIR cosmonauts provides much better space biology than sending a few mice into space.

    And wtf is the IIS for then???

    And this is not a reduced G vs micro G comment.
    • The weightlessness experience of the MIR cosmonauts provides much better space biology than sending a few mice into space.

      That's only applicable for zero-gravity. For a mission to Mars, we need to know how reduced gravity affects people. For example, is there a threshold below which the immune system becomes ineffective, or is it a gradual decline? The same matters for bone loss: is it a threshold, or a linear relation?

      And wtf is the IIS for then???

      I don't know what Internet Information Server has

  • Return ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Animaether ( 411575 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:38PM (#8037622) Journal
    Maybe I'm missing it.. they speak of in-flight and post-flight data on one page, so will this thing eventually return back down to earth intact ?

    If not.. erm.. those mice will be left to starve to death and rot, or be burned up in the atmosphere, or ?
    ( I know, I know.. hundreds of mice die at the hand of science every day, but would anything prevent the thing from returning back to earth 'safely' ? )

  • It will come back? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:39PM (#8037629) Journal
    The spacecraft is composed of three main subsystems, as shown. The Payload Module, developed at MIT, provides life support capabilities and data telemetry/storage from onboard experiments; the Entry Descent and Landing system, developed at the University of Queensland, carries the payload safely back to Earth at the conclusion of the mission and protects it from heat and impact shocks during descent and landing; and the Spacecraft Bus, developed at the University of Washington, contains the orbital systems providing navigation, propulsion, power, communications, and environmental regulation throughout the mission.

    How much extra will it cost to bring the unit back to earth? I would save a little money on the return trip and add more sensors (or better sensors), maybe plan more experiments.

    This is cool. If I was a physics student in highschool, I think MIT jumped to the head of the class. What is Cal-Tech going to do to top this?

    • Re:It will come back? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zeux ( 129034 ) * on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:43PM (#8037683)
      They need them back to see how they re-adapt to Earth gravity after 5 weeks at 0.38g.

      Maybe they could make the satellite spin even faster to reach 1.0g ?
    • What is it about space travel that causes everyone to suddenly become obsessed with cost?

      The average new car costs about $18,000 now, and people gladly race to the lot to sign up for five years of payments after which they don't even own it.

      But if anything leaves the atmosphere, suddenly we all put on our green hats and start wheezing about "return on investment."

    • Re:It will come back? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What is Cal-Tech going to do to top this?

      They, um.. have this rover-thing on MARS Perhaps you've read about it?
    • Yeah, then you could never see what happened to the mice and you could just scrap the whole thing....

  • But... (Score:4, Funny)

    by rewt66 ( 738525 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:40PM (#8037644)
    won't it be hard to use them? They'll tend to float off of the mousepad...

  • Nuclear (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by 77Punker ( 673758 )
    I still think nuclear is the best option for power, beating chemical, solar, and even mouse-wheel.

  • Fark.com? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ShawnDoc ( 572959 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:41PM (#8037658) Homepage
    Isn't it kind of a stretch to say Fark.com has coverage of it? At least Slashdot tends to give you a paragraph or two summary, at fark you get one line, and a bunch of unmoderated comments.

  • Not a one-way mission.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Chibi ( 232518 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:41PM (#8037665) Journal

    I was initially worried about the ethics of sending mice on a one-way mission to Mars ("gee, let's see the effects of starvation in the low-gravity environment"), but I was glad to see that this will only be a simulation with the intent of bringing the mice back:

    The goal of the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program is to send the mice into near-Earth orbit inside a one-meter space ship simulating Mars' gravity, then bring them back to Earth... The mouse cages will be designed for comfort and protection with room for the little travelers to lope around for exercise in the simulated gravity of Mars.
  • Do these mice run Linux on their Thinkpad laptops?

  • No need to count noses on splashdown (Score:5, Funny)

    by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:45PM (#8037713) Homepage Journal
    Sorry to disapoint you.

    The students will be using only female mice, says Wooster.

    I guess they don't want to risk cosmic-ray enhanced population explosion on the offchance it might produce <obligatory simpsons reference>.

    (for those of you blinking in confusion)
    <obligatory simpsons reference>I, for one, welcome our new Cheese-Loving Overlords</obligatory simpsons reference>
  • It is plain to anyone with more than half a brain that Bush is trying to using space to take the focus off other issues (just like the 60s and Vietnam). But this thing with mice adds a new twist. I didn't think there were rodent lobbiests.

  • Mars ? (Score:2)

    by zeux ( 129034 ) *
    This remind me about an experiment that was covered on Slashdot where scientist were able to 'remote control' a mouse via implants in its brain.

    What about sending a remote controlled mouse on Mars an make it perform experiments ? I mean it could very well go somewhere and bring stones back to a little rocket for sending them back to earth.

    A mouse is very light thus easy to send on Mars.
  • .. pigs in space (ROTFLOL) .. I must be old cause I remember that from the Jim H. muppets show.. :-)
  • From the NAR High Power Rocket Safety Code page [nar.org]

    My high power rocket will never carry live animals (except insects) or a payload that is intended to be flammable, explosive, or harmful.

    They'll lose their certification for SURE!

  • The most interesting question about space mice is how they are going to affect our fragging experience. I mean are space mice better when shooting at aliens or are they just yet another project wasting taxpayers' hard-earned money instead of doing something useful (like improving our frag rate)? Also, I would also like to know if the space mice will be available in PS/2 or USB versions since I saw no mentions of the bus types.

  • Why not a wheel? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TheClam ( 209230 )
    From the article:
    No wheels, though, says Wooster, because NASA has learned that exercise can counteract some of the effects of low-gravity on astronauts. A mouse with a wheel in its cage can actually run several miles a day. "We don't want to give the mice a countermeasure in terms of exercise."
    Why not? If you gave a few mice wheels (or is that wheel mice?), you'd get more data on how exercise would help mars-onauts.
    • I think the whole idea is that mice can exercise for the better part of a day, and as anyone who has ever owned a rodent would know, the little bastards will run on that stupid wheel all night long without breaking a sweat. This is in contrast to even very fit humans, who just can't be spending 12 hours a day on a treadmill.

      Thus, the data really wouldn't be useful, unless we could automatically kick the mice off the wheel after x revolutions and lock it out until the next day. That would simulate the amoun

  • Mice show that space pregnancy is feasible (Score:3, Interesting)

    by richard_za ( 236823 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:58PM (#8037854) Homepage Journal
    In a related article [space.com] also on space.com it is mentioned that mice embroyes low gravity conditions develop normally, thanks to some pioneering work by Japanese scientists. It seems to me that mice get to do all the fun things.
  • put two compartments in, one with a tighter radius, (and thus lower gravity) - then they can simulate TWO different microgravity environments in ONE experiment (I recommend Lunar and Martian).

  • What about the Prime Directive? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HaeMaker ( 221642 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @06:59PM (#8037868) Homepage
    We have yet to determine wether life exists on Mars, and yet we are planning to send living organisms to the planet.

    How can we prove that life existed on Mars before we planted our own infestation?
    • Please RTFA. The experiment will simulate the gravity of Mars on an orbit around Earth. The article also says the mice will return alive to be studied, something which would be rather difficult if they were sent to Mars and back, since few (if any) survive.

      R.

    • How can we prove that life existed on Mars before we planted our own infestation?

      If we eventually discover that all life on Mars consists of a bunch of furry little white rodents making squeaking noises and with a penchant for cheese, then we know it's just Earth mice.

      If the rodents are 50' long, bright green, and have antennae on their heads, then they ain't from Earth.

      Seems simple enough... ;-)

  • And send that jackass Bush to the otherside of the universe.

    Maybe get rid of that slew of aliens in his Administration as well.

    Eww... Condelezza Rice...
  • Your dog wants a farmer's market; still no cure for boobies. Ackbar surrenders.
  • First indie kid with a Mouse on Mars reference gets slaughtered.

  • Ahh my childhood days of estes rockets (Score:5, Funny)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @07:07PM (#8037949) Homepage Journal
    I used to have this payloader rocket that you could load an egg in. One day I was digging around the yard under rocks (like most 14yro boys do) and I found some newts [orst.edu]. Hmm, astro... astro... ASTRONEWTS YEAH!

    So being the unusually cruel kind of kid that pulled the wings off of flies, and pretended his magnifying glass was the death star at alderon over an ant hill, I began my devious little plan.

    I packed up my rockets, grabbed a few C6-7 engines I had (I love the long delay) and headed out to the school on my schwinn with the newt safely in tow.

    I set up the launch pad, did all my pre-flight checks (make sure the fins aren't unglued, ect) and loaded the little guy in my egg payloader.

    5...4...3...2...1 LIFTOFF!!!

    Pretending that I was in mission control, I started saying things to myself like "Ok Houston, we have liftoff, going to full throttle" "Booster seperation complete, deploying parachute" I hopped back on my bike too chase the red and white striped parachute down.

    The wind had carried the rocket south off school grounds [terraserver.com], it was an overcast day so there must have been some high winds. I must have followed it for a 1/2 mile or so before I lost site of it. Then I noticed the red and white parachute dragging the cone and body of the rocket around the expressway from the wind that was kicked up by the cars. Then the unimaginable happened...

    A orange 1976 toyota celica came barreling down the road. I swear to god, the driver looked me right in the eye, looked back at the rocket, and made a beeline straight towards it. I watched in horror as the right front wheel drove right over the plastic payload bay. After the cars had passed, I walked over to my injured rocket, which was now just a mess of carboard tubing, some balsa wood, and a bloody flattened carcase of a newt encased in a polyetheline casket.

    I never flew a newt again.
  • Well I don't know about anyone else but I would just like to say all hail to our new mouse masters.
  • Are you pondering what I'm pondering??
  • And getting back about 1300 of them.
  • Umm, no offense (and I check Fark multiple times a day myself) but Fark doesn't actually cover stories.
  • Can someone explain to me why humans must be specifically trained to become accustomed to experiencing the high g-forces generated during lift-off, but we can dump a bunch of everyday lab mice into a capsule and shoot them up to space without worrying about any ill-effects for the mice?

    I mean, I understand that these people couldn't care less about the mice, but surely they must have some confidence that the mice will reach orbit safely in order to conduct the experiment. Could mice survive as many G's as

  • No wheels? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Door-opening Fascist ( 534466 ) <skylar@cs.earlham.edu> on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @10:11PM (#8039509) Homepage
    NASA has learned that exercise can counteract some of the effects of low-gravity on astronauts.
    I don't understand this rationale not give any of the mice wheels. The first humans on Mars are unlikely to be sitting in front of a TV drinking beer all day; they'll be experiencing a significant amount of exercise maintaining the habitat, exploring, and conducting research. Give at least a few of them wheels.
  • Why Mice? Send humans instead! There are still states where a death sentence is legal. Send such prisoners there.

    If they are dead - it's their sentence. If they survive - it's their amnisty. And a part of their rehabilitation.

    As far as I can see from history that's they way Australia begin speaking English - UK sent Britain prisoners to Australia.

  • Space.com may be reporting on it, but the only work they seem to have accomplished is to revamp their website. Even their newsletters contain almost no news, and mostly puff pieces.

    In short, this project is vaporware, the same as it has been for nearly four years now.

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