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  Russia training macaques monkeys for Mars

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Author Topic:   Russia training macaques monkeys for Mars
SpaceAholic
Member

Posts: 4437
From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 10-27-2015 03:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for SpaceAholic   Click Here to Email SpaceAholic     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Daily Mail reports that the Russian Academy Of Science is training four rhesus macaques to travel into space and land on Mars.
Each day a team, led by Inessa Kozlovskaya, trains the monkeys to control a joystick and hit a target highlighted by a cursor.

When they complete the task successfully they are rewarded with a sip of juice.

Once they have mastered this task the macaques will be trained to solve simple mathematical tasks and puzzles.

At the end of their training the creatures should be capable of completing a daily schedule of tasks on their own.

The scientists are hoping this will be achieved by 2017.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 10-27-2015 03:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Caution is always prudent with the Daily Mail, which has a business model of rehashing old stories with (sometimes invented) new facts to make them sound more current. Case in point, the BBC reported in 2008...
The institute will select macaques that may eventually fly to Mars before humans do. After two years of experiments the most suitable 40 monkeys will be sent to the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow, where scientists study aerospace biomedicine.

Experiments on the monkeys will be carried out at the same time as the Mars-500 project. That project - due to start early next year - is aimed at simulating the conditions of interplanetary flight. Volunteers will have to spend 17 months in a mock-up "spaceship" in Moscow.

But a real expedition to Mars is not likely to happen for another 10 years at the very least.

So at best, the Daily Mail article is an update to a project that has been in the works (and apparently running behind schedule) for at least seven years.

bwhite1976
Member

Posts: 281
From: Belleville, IL
Registered: Jun 2011

posted 10-27-2015 03:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for bwhite1976   Click Here to Email bwhite1976     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
What is the purpose of sending the monkeys to Mars exactly? Even monkeys would require a sizeable spacecraft if they want them to live the duration of the mission.One way trip? Do they land? Do they have little tiny controls they can use to land the lander? Have they worked out which monkey will step out first?

ColinBurgess
Member

Posts: 2031
From: Sydney, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 10-27-2015 06:57 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ColinBurgess   Click Here to Email ColinBurgess     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I'm very skeptical about all this, but if there's a shred of truth in it I have to ask if the Russians have at last found a way of shielding any primate occupants of a spacecraft in deep space from the dastardly and brain-draining effects of cosmic radiation? That, to me, is one of the biggest problems we face in long-duration space flight to other planets.

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