KosmoKitty

I am currently reading Jerry Pournelle's excellent book, A Step Farther Out. It consists primarily of a series of pop-science essays which Jerry wrote in the mid to late seventies. Several of them discuss his role as a researcher in the early stages of the U.S. space program.

Here is an anecdote I found particularly smirk-worthy, as it illustrates the fact that science isn't always test tubes and eggheads; sometimes scientists do something that, in hindsight, was obviously a Really Bad Idea...

I will not soon forget some of our early low-g experiments. Some genius wanted to know how a cat oriented: visual cues, or a gravity sensor? The obvious way to find out was to take a cat up in an airplane, fly the plane in a parabolic orbit, and observe the cat during the short period of zero-g.

It made sense. Maybe. It didn't make enough that anyone would authorize a large airplane for the experiment, so a camera was mounted in a small fighter (perhaps a T-bird; I forget), and the cat was carried along in the pilot's lap. A movie was made of the whole run.

The film, I fear, doesn't tell us how a cat orients. It shows the pilot frantically trying to tear the cat off his arm, and the cat just as violently resisting. Eventually the cat was broken free and let go in mid-air, where it seemed magically (teleportation? or not really zero gravity in the plane? no one knows) to move, rapidly, straight back to the pilot, claws outstretched. This time there was no tearing it loose at all. The only thing I learned from the film is that cats (or this one, anyway) don't like zero gravity, and think human beings are the obvious point of stability to cling to...

You know what this means, of course: When mankind eventually goes to space in a Big Way, the cats have to stay behind. Try to contain your disappointment.