Am I the only one who thinks the scientists are a bit immoral? They wanted to send a turtle and the only thing that stopped them were the constraints of the experiment. Not the fact that they would be killing a turtle for literally no reason.
Kinda makes me think about the fact that we need stronger ethics rules in the new space race.
Is that any more unethical than going out for wings, even if you aren't really hungry? Maybe you consider both of those things immoral, which is fine, but in that case there are far more animals dying for no real reason on Earth than in space. I would worry about those first.
The difference is that turtles are cuter than chickens, and despite what many people will argue, cuteness, physical beauty etc do have inherent moral worth.
Both NASA and the soviets sent animals into space that they knew weren’t coming back alive. Read up on Laika the dog if you’d like an example. I agree that it’s cruel but it’s no more cruel than things we’ve already done.
I’d argue that just because we have done something before doesn’t mean we should be doing it again. Also during the previous space race you could argue that it was a state of war and... (unfortunately) you have casualties.
Well, besides the Soviet mission it mentioned that used tortoises in the past, I suspect the origin of the reference is in regard to the classic saying "It's tutles all the way down"
Kinda makes me think about the fact that we need stronger ethics rules in the new space race.