What exactly are those tests and do they cost anywhere near the $100,000 figure you quoted? People routinely bring books, iPods, religious items, heck Chris Hadfield even had a guitar with him.

Duuuuuh its SPACE. Things don’t weigh anything! So yah, like, no cost.

guy, just stop and think for a moment. they are up in space. isolated. they work, ALOT. don’t you like fun distractions in your life too? i bet you are scrolling around the internet looking for a fun distraction actually!

if i were in space, working my ass off. i would welcome a monkey into my life.

My assumption is that each astronaut is allotted a certain amount of payload for personal items. So long as this astronaut chose to sacrifice some of his other personal items/payload for the gorilla suit, I don’t see a problem.

“Those would have been in their personal allotment when they went up...”

I’m not seeing how it would be inappropriate. There are personal allotments on cargo flights for gift boxes from friends and family. It’s very similar in concept to the US military shipping care boxes from friends and families to soldiers who are deployed overseas. The cost of moving those materials to the from the…

I doubt any one item is the lynchpin on which crew morale is hinging - for example if testing showed this suit’s mask outgassed VOCs and it was prohibited from being sent as personal cargo.

I find it interesting that I did not see similar complaints that Chris Hadfield brought a guitar aboard the ISS, os that Samantha Christoforetti brought a Star Trek uniform, among their personal effects.

Don’t forget, you are only considering the freight cost for delivery of the suit to the ISS.