Monkey on NASA's Back, Part Deux

Back in January, I blogged about NASA's somewhat controversial plans to expose squirrel monkeys to gargantuan amounts of radiation to simulate what might happen to astronauts on long space journeys.

...PETA is protesting in front of various NASA sites about a study in which the space agency will expose 18 squirrel monkeys to the amount of space radiation in one big dose that astronauts would receive on an entire multi-month mission. In other words, a reallly high dose.

Turns out the monkey's still on NASA's back.

Business Wire yesterday ran an article by Animal Defenders International saying that long-time NASA-employed International Space Station engineer, April Evans, has resigned her good-paying, excellent-benefits government job in protest. Her argument, in part, is that such research is no longer needed, the larger issue being figuring out how to shield space travelers from the radiation in the first place.