Mice, Newts Retrieved After a Month Orbiting Earth At 345 Miles Up 85
The Associated Press (as carried by the Washington Post) reports that a living payload of newts and mice has been retrieved after a month orbiting earth in a Russian space capsule at an altitude of 345 miles, far higher than the ISS's orbital distance of 205 miles.
Says the story: "Fewer than half of the 53 mice and other rodents who blasted off on April 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome survived the flight, Russian news agencies reported, quoting Vladimir Sychov, deputy director of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems and the lead researcher. Sychov said this was to be expected and the surviving mice were sufficient to complete the study, which was designed to show the effects of weightlessness and other factors of space flight on cell structure. All 15 of the lizards survived, he said. The capsule also carried small crayfish and fish."
Re:No Amphibians Listed in Article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No Amphibians Listed in Article (Score:3, Informative)
Sources:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1304/19bionm1/#.UZlBX39dAbE [spaceflightnow.com]
http://www.space.com/20732-russia-launches-animals-space-bion-m1.html [space.com]
Re:Cause of death (Score:4, Informative)
Hard landing in Kazakhstan desert would be another possibility.
Re:Cause of death (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder if it's far enough to get out of the earths magnetosphere.
No. Let me put it this way, on the day side, Earth's magnetosphere extends more than twice as far as geosynchronous satellites. On the night side it extends far, far past the Moon (which will encompass the Moon if it happens to be there at the time).
Re:Cause of death (Score:4, Informative)
Do you know something the rest of us don't?
Nope, he knows something that you don't.
The Moon isn't always on the nightside of Earth.
Re:Cause of death (Score:2, Informative)
Radiation? Life support system malfunctions? Launch related problems? Bit more details would make it interesting.
The PhysOrg [phys.org] article has a few snippets information:
The animals on board the Bion-M craft died because of equipment failure or due to the stresses of space, scientists said.....But at the end of the experiment, "less than half of the mice made it—but that was to be expected," Sychov told Russian news agencies. "Unfortunately, because of equipment failure, we lost all the gerbils."