China to send monkeys to its new space station to study how they reproduce there, report says

Getting large animals to mate in a zero-gravity environment poses several hurdles

China is reportedly planning to send monkeys to its newly completed Tiangong space station to study how they grow and reproduce in a zero-gravity environment.

The research would be conducted in the space station’s largest module slated to be used for life science experiments, South China Morning Post reported, citing Zhang Lu, a scientist leading the development of scientific equipment for the space station.

“These experiments will help improve our understanding of an organism’s adaptation to microgravity and other space environments,” Dr Lu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said in a speech.