Pigs in Space!

[todofwar]

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Ants don't have much relevance to human life support systems.

Most life support experiments have been done on animals already. Most ISS experiments on animals don't get much public coverage because of extremists who would scream out about it, but they exist. There is also Russia's Bion program (The Bion spacecraft are derived from Yantar military observation sats, which are derived from good old Vostok!). The last one flew in 2013 and carried gerbils, mice, geckos, fish, snails, and other microbes and critters, with various rates of survival.

As for measuring radiation exposure levels, there are more reliable ways of getting raw data than sending animals. 

Yeah but again, those didn't stray into the belts or deep space, so not much better than the prolonged exposure of humans on the ISS. We can get radiation levels easy enough, but actually seeing their effects on biological systems is more challenging. Ants aren't the best analogue organism, but even sending up some nematodes will give lots of useful information on the effects of space radiation on multicellular organisms.

[Jonfliesgoats]

I love the mouse-infested space sausage ideas!

In Australia, Koalas do odd things.  Koalas may wind up performing hilarious but fatal hijinx.  Is there any reason a Koala would not be edible?

Farm in Space: jokes aside, farming will be a necessary part of colonization and possibly travel to the outer solar system.  If it takes a ton of supplies to support 2kg of mice for two years, some sort of farming, say with hydroponics, starts looking appealing to recycle at least some biomass on the vessel.

Of course, I would rather see goats, chickens and donkies crammed into an Orion capsule and launched haphazardly skyward.

This why dad never gives me the keys to the space program.

[NSEP]

I cant imagine those fat bodies and those small stubby legs moving around in zero-G, and imagine the hygienics. Just go for humans or robots. Ok, its fine to take a pig AND a human up there.