Astronauts Frustrated by Shuttle Snags : Monkey Improved but 4 of 15 Experiments Are Out of Action
Monkey No. 1 aboard Challenger’s orbital zoo appeared recovered from space disorientation today, but a balky experiment frustrated a shuttle scientist who had waited 12 years to use it in orbit.
The ship’s “zoo keepers” were still having problems with animal droppings escaping into the Spacelab module and the flight director said doctors had some “low level” concern about the hygienic conditions.
As Challenger swept into the fourth day of a seven-day orbital expedition, mission manager Joseph Cremin said four of the 15 experiments on board were out of action. But he said troubles were to be expected with such complex equipment.
Commander Robert F. Overmyer, co-pilot Frederick D. Gregory and scientists Don Lind, Dr. Norman E. Thagard, Dr. William Thornton, Lodewijk van den Berg and Taylor Wang were working two 12-hour shifts to extract as much scientific data from the mission as possible.
Wang, a native of China, was added to the crew primarily to operate a sophisticated new device he designed 12 years ago to manipulate liquid drops with sound waves in weightlessness. It failed to work Wednesday, and he has spent the better part of two days waiting for instructions on ways to try to fix it.
“Seeing the precious seconds ticking away is really frustrating,” Wang said.
2 Monkeys, 24 Rats
Thagard and Thornton, both medical doctors, spent much of their time tending to the two squirrel monkeys and 24 rats in the cages on one side of Spacelab. Of particular interest was monkey No. 1, who earlier displayed signs of disorientation in weightlessness and who did not appear to be drinking water or eating.
“Primate No. 1 is certainly drinking,” Thagard reported. “I watched him drink quite a bit a while ago. He was really going at it. But he doesn’t seem all that interested in eating right now, although I suppose that will pick up too.
“Primate 2 very active and he certainly eats,” he added.
He also checked the rats and said the 12 he could see in front cages “appear to be healthy.” The rats will be killed eight to 10 hours after Monday’s landing to see how their tissues were affected by the flight. The monkeys will not be harmed.
Escaping Debris
In what turned out to be one of the major jobs of the day, Thagard, Van den Berg, Overmyer and Thornton inserted fresh food bars into the rat cages. Earlier attempts to do this resulted in clouds of debris escaping into the laboratory.
This time, Thagard shut down fans in the animal cages and Van den Berg stood by with a vacuum cleaner. All four men wore face masks to keep from inhaling any of the waste.
“Even with the vacuum cleaner running, we wound up with a situation where several rodent droppings went by the vacuum cleaner and escaped into the module,” Thagard said.
