NASA Engineer Resigns Over Monkey Radiation Experiments

NASA engineer April Evans recently resigned when the space agency refused to address her concerns about its proposed monkey radiation experiments.

Evans’ decision to quit NASA, where she was an architect on the International Space Station, has received extensive coverage, including a story in the Houston Chronicle.

In September, Evans left a voicemail message for employees at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, where the squirrel monkeys will be exposed to radiation, and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., where the animals will be housed during the duration of the experiments.

“I’m calling because your employer is responsible for making the final decision on whether to allow NASA to expose squirrel monkeys to harmful levels of radiation,” said Evans in her voicemail. “Irradiating monkeys cannot bridge the gap of knowledge critical to enabling long-term human space exploration. There are better strategic approaches available for NASA to combat radiation, such as developing space radiation shielding technologies to protect our astronauts.”

NASA’s planned experiments involve spending $1.75 million to study the effects of a few hours of radiation exposure on 2-pound squirrel monkeys in an attempt to determine the effects of months or years of space travel on 180-pound human astronauts. PCRM is pushing the agency instead to allocate this money toward modern nonanimal alternatives, such as anthropomorphic phantoms, which are proven more accurate than animal experiments.