A New Astronaut

When astronauts send something into space to see if it can be an astronaut, so far they've found that monkeys and women are the only things that can be an astronaut. But have we really exhausted all options?

For really dangerous or suicidal space missions, what about dolphin astronauts? They have huge brains and can survive without air for a really long time. The only strike against them is that you can't send one up by itself. Do I really need to point out that they can't push the tiny buttons or grab things without an opposable thumb?

Please be smart about this. Anytime I mention dolphin astronauts, most people pretend they just got a text message and walk out of the room, so please try to think outside the box.

So anyway, dolphins can't do it alone. The only way to do it right is to send up a monkey with the dolphin and just let the dolphin instruct the monkey. Even though a woman would be able to communicate with mission control 100 times better than the monkey, I just thought maybe the monkey and dolphin would get along better. Plus that would be wrong sending someone's mom on a dangerous mission. It would make a good heartbreaking Oscar worthy movie though.

The question is this: Is it worthwhile to send up a crew that doesn't speak the same language? Would the dolphin be able to discipline the monkey if he started to act irrationally? Doubtful.

So maybe dolphins don't go into space, maybe they just work in a special Research & Development department at NASA. You never know, maybe their HUGE brains give them a high aptitude for finding hidden keyboard shortcuts. It's so random and unlikely, but we don't know for sure and we'll never know until we try. Come on NASA, we have monkey astronauts and monkeys are essentially retarded humans. Dolphins are 20 times smarter than monkeys, give them a chance.