We all known that before humans visited the space or even landed on the moon, it was the animals, insects and even fishes that went to space. Off-course, as a part of the experiment of humans about how zero gravity affects living organisms. The first human to visit space was cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in the Vostok 1 space craft sparking off a space race between USSR (Russia) and USA. Yes even Rakesh Sharma from India did fly to space in the Soyuz T11 on April 2, 1984. But, animals too have played an integral role in space missions and study. Since the 1950, many animals have been sent to space before humans that too including dogs, cats, monkeys, chimps, ants, beetles, spiders, cockroaches, rabbits, jelly fish, brine shrimp to name a few. – Well, let us run through first five animal astronauts that went to space.
Fire flies (1947) The first one to enter space housed in a capsule in a V2 rocket was a fire fly. The rocket was launched from an American Airforce base and was designed by the Nazis. The fire flied returned to Earth safely in the capsule and had not effect of the cosmic radiation. They did not mutate to anything else as well.
Monkey (1949) – As the race to space began, USA was the first to send Albert II, a rhesus macaque monkey into the space over German V2 rocket. The monkey was put under anesthesia for the entire duration of the flight. But, it died due to the impact after the rocket entered earth’s atmosphere. The data of it being alive until then was available.
Dog (1957) – The first dog to enter space after a lot of training including feeding on gel was Laika (Muttnik). It was a stray mongrel weighing 11 pounds and was picked up from Moscow street and trained to eat space good in gel form. It flew in the Sputnik 2 but as the space craft did not support reentry to earth, it was bound to die. Though the dog had to stay alive for 7 days it died within 7 hours due to the overheating of the cabin as well as too much stress when the space craft was in the fourth orbit.
Squirrel & Rhesus Monkey (1959) – The duo, a rhesus monkey and a squirrel monkey (named Able and Baker ) flew to space in the Jupiter C rocket in the year 1959. They were placed in the missile nose cone of the rocket and stayed in space for 9 minutes before coming back to earth. All wired with electrodes for measuring their vital signs. Yes, both of them landed on earth alive but within 5 days post landing, able died as a result of bad anesthesia while removing attached electrodes from his body. Baker stay healthy and died only in 1984.
Dog Duo (1960) – In the year 1960, Russia spent quite a few animals mainly two stray dogs named Belka and Strelka besides 40 mice, some fruit flies, two rats and even a rabbit. Before the flight both the dogs were trained to live in confined space as well as under extreme acceleration. All the animals were alive after they came back to earth.
It is after the success of the aforementioned mission is when Yuri Gagarin was sent to space.
*Sourced from the Internet
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