I Am Totally Serious About This

I've been watching Aliens of the Deep and a lot of it talks about future space exploration (an activity I am very strongly in favor of). And it occurs to me that there are a lot of psychological factors that need to be taken into consideration for such long journeys through space.

Therefore I think it's absolutely vital that we start bringing cats on space shuttle missions. We need to be able to figure out how cats can survive in space and on Mars, and what their needs are (special petting technology? zero-g litterboxes?). I think a six person mission to Mars should bring at least one cat. Preferably a clone of General Gau (or at least an excellently tempered black cat just like him).

Even Ernest Shackleton had cats! (though he did end up having to eat them...)