Jul 10 1985
From The Space Library
The USSR today launched Cosmos 1667 intended for the continuation of research on the effects of spaceflight on living organisms, TASS in English reported. During the flight, there would be experiments to study processes of adaptation to weightlessness and to investigate opportunities for radiation shielding during spaceflight.
The satellite carried two monkeys, Verny and Gordy, for studies on vestibular and hemodynamic responses of living organisms to weightlessness at the acute period of adaptation. Experiments carried out at that time would take quantitative measures of the excitability of the vestibular apparatus and to note increases in its reactivity. The experiments would also yield direct data on the outflow and inflow of blood to the head.
Experiments with 10 male rats aboard the satellite were intended to determine the influence on all parts of a living organism of the acute period of adaptation to weightlessness and later readaptation.
Ten tritons (mollusks) carried on the satellite previously had a portion of their front limbs and lenses amputated in order to study possibilities of regeneration and division of cells at zero gravity. And a biocalorimeter would monitor 1,500 Drosophila flies aboard the satellite to determine processes of energy exchanges during the emergence of the flies from nymphs and to study the flies' metabolism. Guppy fish, cornseeds, and crocuses were also experimental subjects.
Scientists from the U.S., Bulgaria, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and France cooperated with Soviet scientists in developing the experimental equipment for the flight and in pre- and postflight examination of the animals and plants abroad the spacecraft. (FBIS, Tass in English, July 10/85, July 13/85)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
