Space Cats
How the "falling cat" phenomenon helped NASA prepare astronauts for zero gravity
Chris Wild
1969
There is a tradition at Trinity College that I used to throw cats out of windows. I explain that the proper method was to let the cat drop on a bed from about two inches - James Clerk Maxwell
It is a well-known phenomenon that a cat falling upside down has the ability to turn its body mid-air so that it lands on its feet. Although a number of scientists, including James Clerk Maxwell, had looked in detail at the "falling cat" problem, nobody had attempted to analyze the movement mathematically until 1969, when T.R. Kane and M.P. Scher of Stanford, California published a paper in the International Journal of Solids and Structures titled "A Dynamical Explanation of the Falling Cat Phenomenon." This study was partly funded by a NASA research grant.Kane and Scher created a model cat using a pair of joined cylinders that flexed and bent together, and devised differential equations that described this study. NASA's interest lay in the fact that they could use this research to develop maneuvers that would help astronauts orient their bodies in the weightless conditions of space. Kane worked with NASA and used his equations to develop moves which were tested by a gymnast on a trampoline, as these images show.
