Veterinarian Lops Off 6 Rat Heads in First Animal Dissection in Space

The shuttle Columbia’s veterinarian chopped the heads off six rats Saturday and performed the first animal dissections in space, hailed by NASA as a scientific triumph.

Martin Fettman, America’s first veterinarian in space, used a miniature guillotine to decapitate the rodents. No anesthesia was used so the organs and tissue would be free of chemicals.

Everything from blood to bones was preserved for post-flight study. Fettman and crew mate M. Rhea Seddon had to work fast; the extremely delicate inner ears, for instance, had to be removed within two minutes of death.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist Frank Sulzman described the dissections as “a milestone in space life sciences research. For the first time, we will have tissue collected in weightlessness, so in that sense, it’s pure tissue. It’s uncontaminated by the effects of gravity.”