NASA: getting more macabre - July 18, 2008
Yesterday it was wee, well today the testing phase for the Orion spacecraft, that will take the place of the space shuttle, has taken a more sinister turn.
It appears that for impact tests, human cadavers are being used, according to Spaceref.com.
That's a bit creepy, and makes you wonder whether, following on from their appeal for urine, NASA will now start asking for even more from their employees.
NB: I am told by Nature's resident crash-test-dummy expert that the use of human bodies is standard practice in car tests. I did not know that. And I'm not sure if that makes the new, worse or better.
Picture credit: NASA
Comments
Yuk! This led me scurrying to the all knowing wikipedia for confirmation. This is what it has to say .. In the late 1930's .. "The first test subjects were human cadavers. They were used to obtain fundamental information about the human body's ability to withstand the crushing and tearing forces typically experienced in a high-speed accident. To such an end, steel ball bearings were dropped on skulls, and bodies were dumped down unused elevator shafts onto steel plates. Cadavers fitted with crude accelerometers were strapped into automobiles and subjected to head-on collisions and vehicle rollovers... work with cadavers presented almost as many problems as it resolved... child cadavers were .. difficult to obtain" .. "By the mid-1950s, the bulk of the information cadaver testing could provide had been harvested." Volunteers and animals were used also.
There should be a law against this. All crash data could be obtained by placing suitable sensors on a dummy made of suitable material to mimic human flesh. There is no need to use these degrading, undignified and ultimately unscientific methods.
Posted by: Richard | July 21, 2008 07:57 AM
Richard, while I understand the immediate visceral reaction (Yuk!) I question your conclusion that cadaver testing is degrading, undignified or unscientific. The bodies that are used were specifically donated for use in research. If I choose to donate my body to science I certainly expect that it will probably not survive in an intact state. Otherwise, I expect they would be able to use living subjects.
As far as the testing being unscientific, how do you think dummies are able to mimic human responses? They were developed using data from cadavers. And they still don't mimic human responses exactly. If you've read any of the other articles on this subject (the spaceref link in the original post for instance) you will know that they also do extensive testing with dummies and computer modeling, but this isn't sufficient.
Should there be rules and regulations regarding the use of cadavers in scientific research? Yes, they already exist. Should it be banned? Definitely not.
Posted by: Matthew | July 21, 2008 02:39 PM
Just to clarify, I don't know much about the history of cadaver testing, and it is quite possible that in the past the procurement and use of cadavers was sometimes ethically questionable. However, that does not mean that the current practice shares those characteristics.
Posted by: Matthew | July 21, 2008 03:09 PM
"has taken a more sinister turn"
Wow, what a way to inject a notion of implied evil where none exists.
The reality of the situation is that the Orion capsule is too big. It has a booster (Ares I) that can barely put it into orbit. For contingency land-landings, they have to test whether or not the impact on hard ground would hurt/kill the crew. If the capsule were lighter, a more robust land landing baseline would be better.
Posted by: Mr. Zsaz | July 21, 2008 05:31 PM
How do cadavers have responses? Also it is possible that when a person has donated his body to science he or she has visions of research being done in a laboratory with their dna, genes and organs and may not have been happy if told that instead they would be chucked around violently. Do the Japanese or Europeans do crash tests with cadavers? Or is this merely an American speciality? I got the impression that cadaver testing was discarded some time ago. Obviously the data from crash dummies serves the purpose.
Posted by: Richard | July 23, 2008 09:06 PM