A 1960 USAF film describing testing being done in support of space biomedicine. Included are early vomit comet flights with kittens and pigeons… they don’t really seem to be able to get a grip on just what’s going on. But then, they didn’t exactly have the situation explained to them, and only had zero-g in fifteen second chunks to learn.
[youtube mI4ZHSd5vNs]
It may look kinda cruel to do this to cats and the like, but it’s necessary. not to learn about how humans are going to handle zero g… we’ve got that. No, we need to put critters in zero g because we’re going to be taking them with us when we finally get up and head out. Of course, when we finally have family-sized colony ships heading out to stake claims in the asteroid belt they will almost certainly rotate for artificial gravity, but zero-g will be something that everyone will have to learn to deal with. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty sure that in a zero g environment cats can probably learn to get around, so long as the walls are covered in burlap and they have their claws. Dogs, I’m not so sure. They’ll have to have velcro booties, I think. Monkeys will almost certainly figure it out, but they’re horrible dangerous little beasts you’ve probably have to be insane to take with you on a space ship.
Also note the Moment Of Extreme Mad Men Fiftiesismocity at about 10:22: a guy is in a Mercury capsule-like impact couch and dropped a few years to WHAM onto the ground. Within mere feet is an Air Force office in full regalia… smoking a pipe like Bob Dobbs. Something about that strikes me funny.