SPACE MONKEYS STILL LOOKING FOR COMPENSATION

May 29 2009

Huntsville, AL – The heavens have been a place dreamed about by cultures throughout the history of humanity. From the beginnings of human consciousness we have dreamed of the stars, trying to understand and attribute meaning to those twinkling points of light in the sky. Through the thousands of years of human
evolution dreams of the heavens was all we were able to attain but in 1957 mankind touched the heavens for the first times and made what had once seemed impossible very much within our grasp.

It wasn’t until four years later that a human being first made his way into space, an event that carried with it the dreams of every human being that ever lived. Yuri Gagarin wasn’t the first Earth being in space though with dogs, monkeys, and chimpanzees acting as the first terrestrial ambassadors into the beyond. Now, fifty years after the first monkeys and chimps were launched into space comes renewed interest in the way those animals were treated and what kind of compensation they may be due.

“There were a lot of unknowns back in the '50s about how the human body would react to space and some real bad concerns that you might die,” said former space shuttle astronaut Bob Crippen to CNN. “And these guys opened that up to at least give people confidence that it was OK to go put Al Shepard and the guys up for the first time.”

Many of the chimps and monkeys used in the early NASA programs have long since passed on, though some are still alive and living in retirement. Human society has seen significant benefits from the space program including microchip technology, artificial hearts, and Tang but very little of that technology and benefit has made its way to the pioneers of the program.

“In a lot of ways it’s very similar to the slave trade. People were taken from their homes and forced to work for little or no money and had no say in the matter. They were forced to work in inhuman and sometimes dangerous conditions with very little regard for their well being or their personal desires,” said Scrape TV Science analyst Dr. Howard Poe. “Like slaves an entire economy was built on their backs but for the most part they saw none of those benefits in their lifetime. Of course the descendants of slaves have seen great benefits to their ancestor’s labours and that is where things differ, but fundamentally it’s the same thing.”

Slaves in the United States were forced to engage in manual labour including farming, mining, and construction. Largely because the technology had not yet been developed no human slaves ever made their way into space.

“Because of the enormous contribution that monkeys and chimps made to the space program at great personal sacrifice I think it would only be fitting to reward their descendents with compensation befitting of their contributions. It’s far too late to make it up to most of the original participants but at least monkeys and chimps today can enjoy some of the fruits of their labour,” continued Poe. “Reparation has a lot of ugly associations attached to it but the cold hard reality is that there is not yet a way to turn back the past and repay the people who made these contributions and so paying back their offspring is the only way to make things right. I’d personally recommend a variety of bananas and gourmet fruits but the actual form of compensation can be worked out once officials agree to repay those efforts.”

NASA officials did not return our calls. Russian space officials have reportedly agreed on compensation with descendents of dogs used in their early space program.   

Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent

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