I Can Has Gravity?

January 15, 2011 10:46 AM

Weightless Cats and other fun experiments. An excerpt from from coverage of research at the Aerospace Medical Division Hq 657Oth Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories including scenes of F-104 seat ejection; drop tests from C-130 and ejection from F-106; effects of weightlessness on cats and pigeons in a C-131; test subjects in water tank, on centrifuge, in heat chamber and on complex coordinator. Also, scenes of vertical deceleration tower, incline impact test facility, vertical accelerator, equilibrium chair and vibration platform. More videos can be found at Airboyd.tv: Accident Animations, Aviation Films, Military Flight Training Films, and Space Shuttle Vidoes.
posted by Fizz (32 comments total)

Weightless Cats and other fun experiments

Somehow I don't think the cats would agree with that adjective.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:50 AM on January 15, 2011 [11 favorites]

Poor kitties. Also, Airboyd is the king of aviation awesome. Whenever I watch a flight video on Youtube, half the time it's from them.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:56 AM on January 15, 2011

That was freaking hilarious, although I didn't think much of the guy at the end launching the kitty like a hacky-sack.
posted by Edgewise at 10:57 AM on January 15, 2011

I expected much more weightless cat piss and cat shit.
posted by boo_radley at 11:08 AM on January 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

I don't the cats look to be in serious agony. I wonder if they'd ever adjust and stop trying to turn in mid-air, if they had enough exposure to the weightless chamber?
posted by Ideefixe at 11:14 AM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Holy crap someone find an affordable way for me to turn the gravity off on my cat!
posted by ignignokt at 11:16 AM on January 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

This is one of the strangest sites I have seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into a zero-gravity chamber, or why.
posted by spitbull at 11:20 AM on January 15, 2011 [10 favorites]

Thank you for that weightless cat video. I woke up 4 cats while laughing.
posted by nevercalm at 11:29 AM on January 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sounds like the old OMNI Magazine "Theory Contest" winner, the Buttered Cat Array:

When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet. And when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.

posted by mosk at 11:29 AM on January 15, 2011 [17 favorites]

I am surprised this post did not include the terrible "cat on acid" clip. But I'm glad it didn't.

Honest warning: distressing. Do not watch if seeing animals unnecessarily distressed distresses you.
posted by Decani at 11:31 AM on January 15, 2011

Speaking as someone who considers himself pretty tender-hearted toward cats, it seemed within humane limits of what we might inflict on test animals in the interests of Science!. (I assume they weren't doing this simply to amuse themselves.)

But compare this video with that of a weightless dog...

The cat seems to be demanding, not unreasonably, "What the fuck is happening?"

The dog is sort of, "oh... floating. huh."
posted by Joe Beese at 11:40 AM on January 15, 2011 [9 favorites]

the terrible "cat on acid" clip.

Despite the warning, I clicked on that. Wish I hadn't.
posted by nevercalm at 12:04 PM on January 15, 2011

Holy crap someone find an affordable way for me to turn the gravity off on my cat!


Here you go
posted by clarknova at 12:05 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

The dog is sort of, "oh... floating. huh."

"I am weightless, and I love you."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:59 PM on January 15, 2011 [5 favorites]

But compare this video with that of a weightless dog ...

Weightless creatures are always hilarious!
posted by Decani at 1:11 PM on January 15, 2011

Decani, I wish you hadn't even reminded me of that clip. Ugh.
posted by brundlefly at 2:10 PM on January 15, 2011

Mrs B: It's our cat. He doesn't do anything. He just sits out there on the lawn.
Vet: Yes ... well I think I can definitely say that your cat badly needs to be confused.
Mrs B: What?
Vet: I'm afraid I'm not personally qualified to confuse cats, but I can recommend an extremely good service. Here is their card.
Mrs B: (reading card) Oooh. '6570th Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories'. Wait a minute, does this place have anything to do with that other place, Confuse-a-Cat Limited?
Vet: Look, you wanted me to diagnose your cat, that's all. I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.
posted by crapmatic at 3:24 PM on January 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

Weightless Cats and other fun experiments

Oh right. That's hilarious people. But mark my words: when the creatures from the cat planet invade the earth, this footage will be exhibit A.
posted by Skygazer at 3:35 PM on January 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

There is something about that FPP that seems weird to me. You know I've looked it over 1O times, but I can't quite figure out what it is.
posted by JHarris at 5:08 PM on January 15, 2011

When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet. And when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.

Ah, so that's where that creaky joke originally came from. It's been around the world fifty times since then.
posted by JHarris at 5:19 PM on January 15, 2011

What about zero-grav/micrograv kung-fu? Can someone chime in and describe how it might work?
posted by fuq at 5:29 PM on January 15, 2011

There was just an AskMe about zero-grav kung fu. The consensus was that there would be a lot of chokes and arm bars, similar to the spinning hall scene in Inception.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:41 PM on January 15, 2011

Half cute and half heartbreaking the way the orange one was scrambling to grab onto the floor somehow.
posted by amethysts at 5:49 PM on January 15, 2011

But mark my words: when the creatures from the cat planet invade the earth, this footage will be exhibit A.

Luckily, from the looks of the video, it seems unlikely that the creatures from the cat planet will ever achieve space travel...
posted by Skeptic at 5:59 PM on January 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

I contend that the experiments would have been more profitable if they'd released the cats and the doves at the same time.
posted by Silverdragonanon at 6:00 PM on January 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

I was thinking one would latch onto a face.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:03 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

My two cats can't even see what I'm watching, but they're both inexplicably clinging like death to my stockinged feet. They must have seen this one.
posted by The Potate at 2:09 AM on January 16, 2011

has anyone watched the second FPP link? some of the quotes are legendary:

96s: "The test subject received a shock estimated at 16.5g, and lost consciousness." [hahahaha!]
305s: "The test ends when the subject fails to respond to the centre light, indicating loss of central vision." [...!!]
753s: [This isn't a quote, but does anyone else perceive the blindfold as two fried eggs? That's a tasty blindfold!]
posted by asymptotic at 2:56 AM on January 16, 2011

If you want to follow the kid's meme, it's "haz" not has.
posted by rmmcclay at 5:52 AM on January 16, 2011

Q: What did one floating cat say to the other floating cat?











A: Meow?
posted by Skygazer at 2:37 PM on January 16, 2011

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Floating cat.

Floating cat w---

MOOO!!!!!
posted by Skygazer at 2:38 PM on January 16, 2011

Actually, their turning-reflexes seem to be excellently suited to actually maneuvering in zero-G. Once they calmed down and got the hang of it, they'd probably be better at this than humans could ever dream to be. Bring kittens to the ISS and train them there, maybe.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 9:25 PM on January 16, 2011