Weightless Cats - I Can Has Gravity?

[OM]

...Dear God/Yahweh/Roddenberry, the Air Farce really *did* test cats in zero-g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9XtK6R1QAk&feature=relmfu

 

[Nik]

Uh, the corollary to cats landing on their feet is 'claws first'.

I'm surprised that those felines did not create a cleaning bill. That they didn't may be due to pre-flight training of progressively tossing said kitties higher and higher onto a cushy landing pad such as a thick-folded duvet...

 

[RanulfC]

I once had an earlier test series where they were using what looked like a T-33 for testing. The guy in the back lets go of the cat as they hit null-g and the film camera shows how hard the cat gyrates to find purchase. Note: after the first couple of tests I suspect that the cats were de-clawed prior to testing. Reason? Second "test" shot shows the cat managing to hook a claw in the back-seaters mask and proceeded to latch-on with all claws to his face. Pretty funny, but I'm sure not so at the time

Last test on the clip showed the cat managing to bounce off the back-seaters helmet, claw at the camera several times while the guy was reaching for it and then disappearing forward. Suddenly the back-seater grabs down (assuming for the stick) and the plane shakes... a lot. I suspect the cat proceeded to express it's unhappyness directly to the pilot but that's JUST an assumption at this point

Funny aside? At one point in the '80s IIRC a "survey" of wanna-be space colony residents was conducted by the L5 society. The majority seemed to favor bringing cats into space over dogs. From what I've seen/found it seems that dogs are much more adapatable, (or at least a lot calmer) than cats to micro-gravity. ::::sigh:::

Randy

 

[Grey Havoc]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edIK_3GWq2w

 

[galgot]

Somehow related ?

 

[Archibald]

Well it is high time to make the Murphy law pay for all the misery it inflicted on mankind. The bread slice always fall on the butter side ? screw it with cats. Infinite energy of course is a welcome side result of that experiment.

 

[apparition13]

The correct bread law is that the odds of the bread falling butter side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. Carpet from the dollar store? Butter side up. Three hundred year old Persian carpet? Down it is.

 

[Archibald]

well bread needs 180 cm for a complete turn when our tables are exactly 90 cm high. The only solution is to eat the bread upside down, butter down. This way if it falls the bread will make his stupid half turn but it will land, butter up. Of course it is not practical with jelly.

In your face, Murphy Law !