For immediate release:
August 6, 2021
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo – PETA and its subsidiary PETA Switzerland sent a joint letter this morning to Jean-Patrice Keck Okhemba Okese, founder of the Swiss-backed Congolese space exploration venture Développement Tous Azimuts, urging him to cancel plans to send a guinea pig named Galaxionaut into space. …
Keka attempted to send the animal into space in 2009, but the rocket went off course and crashed into a rock, and Kavira, the rat inside, was never found and presumably died.
“The lives of vulnerable animals should not be endangered by horrific rocket launches,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA encourages Développement Tous Azimuts to join the human space race by banning the use of animals in experiments and sending the Galaxionaut guinea pig to an approved shelter.”
Following vigorous PETA campaigns, NASA and the European Space Agency, which represents Switzerland among its 22 member states, have ended space experiments on monkeys, and the agencies have acknowledged that the results of these experiments had nothing to do with human astronauts.
PETA, whose motto is in part that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – opposes arrogance, a worldview focused on human excellence. For more information please visit PETA.org or subscribe to the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram…