1969: Falling cats as a model for astronauts in zero-gravity
In 1969, NASA contributed funding to the paper “A Dynamical Explanation of the Falling Cat Phenomenon,” published in the International Journal of Solids and Structures, by Stanford’s T.R. Kane and M.P. Scher. It demonstrated that cats are physically capable of rotating their body in mid-air to right themselves when falling.
A cat employs specific motor functions in order to achieve this self-righting mechanism, and the paper analyzed these functions as equations that could then be applied to humans.
Images: Ralph Crane/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
