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Logging the max acceleration in x,y,z would have been better than throwing a bear out of plane. Knowing a bear survives is ridiculous and they knew it. Ethics are orthogonal, cadavers would have ben a better choice.
Logging what with what, in 1962?
This is horrible science. A bear surviving an ejection is nothing like a human surviving an ejection.
Early this on, the process of building physically accurate "fake humans" was not really possible. Bear tests were probably more an early proof of viability than anything else. The bears survived, proving that humans wouldn't be completely annihilated. Animal testing cruelty wasn't really being thought about heavily in post WWII military aerospace development. It's unfortunate but a historical footnote reminding us of…
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Using animals as test subjects isn't really comparable in magnitude to the damage we do on a global scale to ecosystems, which is what is actually causing extinction
That we do even worse is really no excuse.
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... that's really no excuse? 1. How many animals have humans driven to extinction now? Perhaps they would not be extinct were people to treat them with greater respect. 2. If you treat an animal with respect the tables will never have an opportunity to turn, because you won't be blatantly trespassing on it's turf.
Using animals as test subjects isn't really comparable in magnitude to the damage we do on a global scale to ecosystems, which is what is actually causing extinction
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It's bit controversial anyway cause another comment tells a different story altogether: '''According to the government white paper on the subject all bears were destroyed shortly on return to base. All but the last three bears suffered serious internal injuries and multiple broken bones. 'Several hundred' bears were acquired for this purpose, all of which were destroyed 'in or after the testing process, by the testin…
That’s the comment I referenced, but notice the white paper is never linked or even titled.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=WTQrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA92&dq...
None of the bears suffered serious injuries beyond broken bones and whiplash, but they were killed and autopsied afterwards. The paper doesn't explicitly state how many bears were used, and I think hundreds might be an exaggeration, but at least a couple of dozen bears were used based on the number of tests run.
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Logging the max acceleration in x,y,z would have been better than throwing a bear out of plane. Knowing a bear survives is ridiculous and they knew it. Ethics are orthogonal, cadavers would have ben a better choice.
Logging what with what, in 1962?
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A bear ain't going to treat you nearly as well when the tables are turned.
I don't know about that, a bear society that is capable of supersonic flight might have some different code of ethics.
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That’s the comment I referenced, but notice the white paper is never linked or even titled.
I found the paper: Impact Acceleration Stress. 1962 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=WTQrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA92&dq... None of the bears suffered serious injuries beyond broken bones and whiplash, but they were killed and autopsied afterwards. The paper doesn't explicitly state how many bears were used, and I think hundreds might be an exaggeration, but at least a couple of dozen bears were used based on the number of t…
I've managed to find the "white paper" referenced by one of the commenters: Impact Acceleration Stress, 1961 [1]. There is also a feel-good propaganda movie that you can watch, detailing the program while missing out that they killed the bears [2], instead saying that they went under a "customary detailed examination".
One bear died while ejecting, as it was suffering from hydrocephalus (build up of spinal fluid in the brain) before flying, and with the added stress of the ejection must have caused terminal brain injuries. One bear suffered laceration to the liver, attributed to being over-sedated. At least one bear suffered whiplash and a fractured pelvis.
It doesn't specify exactly how many bears were used in testing, but I counted 7 from the tests they did (6 ejecting from the jet, one on a sled), plus one chimpanzee ejected form the jet. I highly doubt there were hundreds of bears, they cannot have been cheap to acquire or easy to keep.
All the animal test subjects were killed and autopsied afterwards.
Robert Sudderth, the Project Officer that commented, corroborates this paper, saying that the bears were not used a second time. John H Watson says that no bears were injured, but that could be just that he wasn't told.
[1] https://books.google.com.au/books?id=WTQrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA92&dq...
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I found the paper: Impact Acceleration Stress. 1962 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=WTQrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA92&dq... None of the bears suffered serious injuries beyond broken bones and whiplash, but they were killed and autopsied afterwards. The paper doesn't explicitly state how many bears were used, and I think hundreds might be an exaggeration, but at least a couple of dozen bears were used based on the number of t…
Respectfully, what's your thinking for why hundreds seems like an exaggeration and is probably dozens instead?
It seems like it would be prohibitively difficult to source several hundred bears when you only plan on doing a few tests. You have to buy them and then you need to find somewhere to put them. Even if money wasn't an issue (and likely wouldn't be on those Cold War budgets), just the logistics of the problem would make it unlikely they'd source more bears than they needed.