What animals were on space flight? The first animals to fly into space: Tailed conquerors of the Universe. Mouse mission to Mars
The question of why animals are sent into space is quite clear: for research purposes. Before sending a person into space, it was necessary to check whether the person could survive the flight. And if he survives, how will the human body react to this?
The first living creature launched into orbit on the Soviet ship Sputnik 2 was the dog Laika on November 3, 1957.
There is a separate article on our website dedicated to dogs in space: Dogs in space. And here we will talk about other animals that have been in space.
Sputnik 3 with biological objects on board
On December 1, 1960, living objects went into flight: two dogs - Bee and Mushka, two Guinea pigs, two white laboratory rats, 14 black mice, seven hybrid mice from SBA and C57 mice and five outbred white mice. Six flasks with highly mutable and seven flasks with low mutable Drosophila lines, as well as six flasks with hybrids, were also placed there. In addition, two flasks with flies were coated with additional protection - a layer of lead 5 g/cm2 thick.
The ship also contained seeds of peas, wheat, corn, buckwheat, and fava beans. Onion and nigella seedlings were flying in a special tray. On board the ship there were several tubes with actinomycetes, ampoules with human tissue culture in and outside the thermostat, and six tubes with chlorella in a liquid medium. The ebonite cartridges contained sealed ampoules with a bacterial culture coli and two varieties of phage - T3 and T4. Special devices contained a culture of HeLa cells, human pulmonary amniotic tissue, fibroblasts, cells bone marrow rabbit, as well as a container with frog caviar and sperm. Tobacco mosaic viruses of various strains and influenza virus were also placed.
The flight lasted just over a day. On the 17th orbit, instead of the planned decrease in flight speed, there was an increase in speed, and the ship moved to a higher orbit. We decided to destroy the device by detonating the charge in order to prevent an unplanned fall onto foreign territory.
All living beings on board died. But the objectives of the mission were fulfilled, the collected scientific data was transmitted to Earth using telemetry and television.
Monkeys in space
Monkeys were launched on suborbital and orbital flights before the first human spaceflight. Monkeys are physiologically close to humans, so it was important to determine what the biological impact of space travel is on these animals. USA launched a monkey into space between 1948-1961. and one flight each in 1969 and 1985. Monkeys were launched into suborbital flights France in 1967, Argentina in 1969-1970, Iran in 2011 Soviet Union and Russia launched monkeys into orbit in 1983-1996. Most often, monkeys were sent into space under anesthesia until landing. They were implanted various sensors into muscles and tendons, with the help of which EMG muscle activity and movements were recorded, electrodes into the brain.
In the picture you see Sam's rhesus macaque, which rose to its apogee at 88 km in 1959 (NASA).
32 monkeys have flown into space; each had only one mission. Breeds of monkeys that have been in space: rhesus macaques, cynomolgus monkeys and common squirrel monkeys, as well as pig-tailed macaques.
The first animals sent into space died. The first monkeys to return safely to earth were rhesus monkeys Abel and Miss Baker, who traveled aboard the Jupiter AM-18 rocket launched on May 28, 1959 from Cape Canaveral. The flight was suborbital with an altitude of over 50 miles. They flew at speeds exceeding 16,000 km/h and withstood an overload of 38 g (373 m/s²). Abel died soon after landing: when doctors removed the implanted sensors from her, she could not stand the anesthesia. Baker lived until 1984 and died at the age of 27. She is buried on the grounds of the US Space and Rocket Center in Hunstville, Alabama. Abel, however, has been preserved and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.
In Russia, for example, monkeys Iwasha And Krosh flew on Kosmos-2229 from 1992 to 1993. Sixteen-year-old space veteran Krosh, after rehabilitation upon returning to Earth, even fathered offspring.
Cats in space
Only France launched these animals into space. There was an embarrassment with the first launch: they were preparing the cat Felix for the flight, but shortly before the launch he ran away. Then he was urgently replaced with a cat Felicette. The flight took place on October 18, 1963. The rocket carrying Felicette was sent into near-Earth space from a test site in the Sahara Desert. She reached an altitude of 200 kilometers, where the capsule with the cat separated and parachuted to the ground. The experiment went well, the cat was removed from the capsule alive and unharmed. Nothing is known about her life after the momentous flight.
Another attempt to launch a cat into space that same year was unsuccessful: the animal died.
Turtles in space
Turtles were sent into space to study the effects of overload on living organisms. On the Zond-5 spacecraft, launched into space on September 15, 1968, there were two Central Asian turtles, Drosophila, Khrushchev, Tradescantia with buds, Hela cells in culture, seeds of higher plants - wheat, pine, barley, chlorella algae on various nutrient media, different types lysogenic bacteria, etc. Zond-5 was the first in the world to fly around the Moon and 7 days after launch returned to Earth, entering the atmosphere from the second escape velocity. The turtles survived the flight normally, but according to some reports, one of them had an eye pop out of its socket due to the overload that reached 20 units upon landing.
After returning to Earth, the turtles were active - they moved a lot and ate with appetite. During the experiment, they lost about 10% in weight. Blood tests did not reveal any significant differences in these animals compared to controls.
The USSR also launched turtles into orbital flights aboard an unmanned spaceship Soyuz-20 in 1975 (a 90-day record for animals in space was set) and on board the Salyut-5 orbital station in 1976.
In 2010, two turtles made a successful suborbital flight on a rocket launched by Iran.
Thus, turtles are the first animals to fly around the Moon.
Dogs Belka and Strelka. After the flight of the dog Laika in 1957, which did not return to Earth (more about her will be discussed later), it was decided to send the dogs on a daily orbital flight with the possibility of returning to Earth in a descent module. For the space flight, it was necessary to select dogs with a light color (so they are better visible on the monitors of observation devices), whose weight does not exceed 6 kg, and whose height is 35 cm, and they must be female (it is easier for them to develop a device for relieving themselves ). And besides, the dogs had to be attractive, because perhaps they would be featured in the media. We met all these parameters mongrel dogs Belka and Strelka. As part of the preparation of these animals for flight, they were taught to eat jelly-like food, which was designed to meet the need for water and nutrition on board the ship. And the most difficult thing was to teach the dogs to conduct long time in a small cramped container in an isolated and noisy environment. To do this, Belka and Strelka were kept for eight days in a metal box comparable in size to the container of the descent module. On last stage During training, the dogs were tested on a vibration stand and a centrifuge. Two hours before the launch of Sputnik 5, which occurred on August 19, 1960 at 11:44 Moscow time, a cabin with dogs was placed in the spacecraft. And as soon as it took off and began to gain altitude, the animals experienced very rapid breathing and pulse. The stress stopped only after Sputnik 5 took off. And although most During the flight, the animals behaved quite calmly; during the fourth orbit around the Earth, Belka began to fight and bark, trying to take off her belts. She felt sick. Subsequently, after analyzing this condition of the dog, scientists decided to limit human space flight to one orbit around the Earth. Belka and Strelka completed 17 complete orbits in approximately 25 hours, covering a distance of 700 thousand km. It is also worth noting that Belka and Strelka were stand-ins for the dogs Chaika and Lisichka, who died during the launch of the Vostok 1K No. 1 spacecraft on July 28, 1960. Then the rocket fell to the ground and exploded at 38 seconds. Laika dog. The very first animal launched into Earth orbit was soviet dog Laika. Although there were two more contenders for this flight - stray dogs Mukha and Albina, who had already made a couple of suborbital flights earlier. But scientists took pity on Albina, because she was expecting offspring, and the upcoming flight did not involve the astronaut returning to Earth. This was technically impossible. So, the choice fell on Laika. During training, she spent a long time in a mock-up container, and just before the flight she underwent surgery: breathing and pulse sensors were implanted. A few hours before the flight, which took place on November 3, 1957, the container with Laika was placed on the ship. At first she had a rapid pulse, but it recovered almost to normal values when the dog was in zero gravity. And 5-7 hours after the launch, having completed 4 orbits around the Earth, the dog died from stress and overheating, although it was expected that she would live for about a week. There is a version that death occurred due to an error in calculating the satellite's area and the lack of a thermal control system (during the flight the temperature in the room reached 40°C). And also in 2002, an opinion appeared that the death of the dog occurred as a result of the oxygen supply being cut off. One way or another, the animal died. After this, the satellite made another 2,370 orbits around the Earth and burned up in the atmosphere on April 14, 1958. However, after the failed flight, a number of more tests were carried out with similar conditions on Earth, since a special commission from the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers did not believe in the existence of a design error. As a result of these tests, two more dogs died. The death of Laika was not announced ahead of schedule for a long time in the USSR, transmitting data on the well-being of the already dead animal. The media reported his death only a week after the dog was launched into space: it was said that Laika had been euthanized. But, of course, about true reasons The animal's death was learned much later. And when this happened, it sparked unprecedented criticism from animal rights activists. Western countries. Many letters came from them expressing protest against the cruel treatment of animals, and there were even sarcastic proposals to send the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev into space instead of dogs. The famous newspaper The New York Times, in its issue of November 5, 1957, called Laika “the shaggiest, loneliest and most unfortunate dog in the world.” Monkeys Able and Miss Baker. Before humans started going into space, several animals were sent there, including monkeys. The Soviet Union and Russia sent monkeys into space from 1983 to 1996, the United States from 1948 to 1985, and France sent two monkeys in 1967. In total, about 30 monkeys have taken part in space programs, and none of them has flown into space more than once. On early stage development of space flights, mortality among monkeys was extremely high. For example, in the United States, more than half of the animals involved in launches from 1940 to 1950 died during the flights or shortly after them. The first monkeys to survive flight were Able the rhesus monkey and Miss Baker the squirrel monkey. All previous space flights with monkeys on board ended in the death of the animals from suffocation or failure of the parachute system. Able was born at the Kansas Zoo (USA), and Miss Baker was purchased from a pet store in Miami, Florida. Both were delivered to medical School Naval Aviation in Pensacola (USA). After training, in the early morning of May 28, 1959, the monkeys were sent into space aboard a Jupiter AM-18 rocket from Cape Canaveral. They rose to an altitude of 480 km and flew for 16 minutes, nine minutes of which they were in zero gravity. The flight speed exceeded 16,000 km/h. During the flight, Able had high blood pressure and rapid breathing, and three days after the successful landing, the monkey died during the removal of the electrodes implanted in its body: it could not bear the anesthesia. Sensors were implanted into the brain, muscles and tendons to record movement activity during flight. Miss Baker died on November 29, 1984 at the age of 27. renal failure. She has reached the maximum age for her species. Able's stuffed animal is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. And Miss Baker is buried on the territory of the US Space and Rocket Center in Hunstville (Alabama). On her tombstone there is always her favorite delicacy - several bananas. Dog Zvezdochka. 18 days before Yuri Gagarin's flight, the USSR sent Sputnik 10 into space with the dog Zvezdochka on board. This single-orbit flight took place on March 25, 1961. In addition to the dog, there was a wooden dummy “Ivan Ivanovich” on board the ship, which, as planned, was ejected. The ship with Zvezdochka on board landed near the village of Karsha in the Perm region. That day the weather was bad, and the search group did not start searching for a long time. However, the descent vehicle with the dog was found by a passerby, who fed the animal and allowed it to warm up. A search party arrived later. This flight was the final check of the spacecraft before flying into space with a person on board. However, Asterisk was not the last dog which was sent into space. Chimpanzee Ham. Born in Cameroon, Africa, the chimpanzee Ham was the first hominid sent into space. In July 1959, three-year-old Ham began to be trained to perform tasks in response to specific light and sound signals. If the chimpanzee performed the task correctly, he was given a banana ball, and if not, he received an electric shock to the soles of his feet. On January 31, 1961, Ham was launched on the Mercury-Redstone 2 spacecraft from Cape Canaveral on a suborbital flight that lasted 16 minutes and 39 seconds. After its completion, the capsule with Ham splashed down in Atlantic Ocean, and a rescue ship found her the next day. Ham's flight was the penultimate one before American astronaut Alan Shepard's flight into space (the last was the flight of the chimpanzee Enos). After the chimpanzee's flight, Ham lived for 17 years at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C., before being transferred to the North Carolina Zoo, where he remained for the rest of his life. Ham died at the age of 26 on January 19, 1983. Rats Hector, Castor And Pollux. To study mammal vigilance in zero gravity, scientists in 1961 decided to send rats into space on the Veronique AGI 24 weather rocket, developed in France. For this purpose, electrodes were inserted into the rat's brain to read brain signals. And the first surgical interventions It took about 10 hours to implant the electrodes, and the mortality rate during such operations was extremely high. The rodent on which the experiment was conducted was only used for 3-6 months due to the aging of the animal and necrosis of the skull, which was caused by the glue that fixed the connector to the skull. Thus, the first flight of a rat on a Veronique AGI 24 took place on February 22, 1961. During it, the rat was held in an extended position in a container using a special vest. In this case, the first rat that was placed in the container gnawed through a bundle of cables that read information, for which it was replaced by another rat. 40 minutes after launch, the rat, as planned, was evacuated from the rocket, and the next day it was brought to Paris. There, journalists who met the scientists with the rodent gave the rat the nickname Hector. 6 months after the flight, Hector was euthanized to study the effects of weightlessness on the electrodes in his body. Nevertheless, Hector's flight was not the last in the study of animal vigilance in conditions of weightlessness. At the next stage, a paired launch was carried out with an interval of three days, which should have made it possible to observe two animals in parallel. So, on October 15, 1962, Veronique AGI 37 was launched with rats Castor and Pollux. For technical reasons, the missile began its flight later than planned, and due to the loss of VHF communication with the search helicopter, the warhead separated from the missile was discovered only an hour and 15 minutes later. During this time, Castor died from overheating, as the temperature in the container in which he was upside down exceeded 40°C. Pollux, sent into space on October 18, 1962, suffered the same fate. Search helicopters were never able to locate head part with a container with an animal. Felicette the cat. At the third stage of studying animal vigilance in conditions of weightlessness, cats were used. On the streets of Paris, scientists caught 30 stray cats and cats, after which they began preparing the animals for flight, including spinning in a centrifuge and training in a pressure chamber. 14 cats passed the selection, among which was Felix the cat. Felix had already been prepared for the flight and had electrodes implanted in his brain, but in the last minutes the lucky man was able to escape. The astronaut was urgently replaced: the cat Felicette was chosen. The suborbital flight on the Veronique AGI47 rocket took place on October 18, 1963. The state of weightlessness lasted 5 minutes 2 seconds. After the flight, the rescue service discovered a capsule with a cat separated from the rocket 13 minutes after launch. And according to the data obtained after the flight, the cat felt well. Felicette quickly became famous, and the flight was hailed by the media as an outstanding achievement. However, photographs of a cat with electrodes implanted in its head that accompanied publications in the press aroused criticism from many readers and fighters against ill-treatment with animals. And on October 24, 1963, another space flight took place under similar conditions with a cat on board. The animal with the unnamed number SS 333 died because the head of the rocket with the capsule was found only two days after its return to Earth. Dogs Veterok and Ugolek. The first longest flight in the history of astronautics was made by the dogs Veterok and Ugolek. The launch took place on February 22, 1966, and the flight ended 22 days later (the Kosmos-110 biosatellite landed on March 17). After the flight, the dogs were very weak, they had palpitations And constant thirst. In addition, when the nylon suits were removed from them, it was discovered that the animals had no hair, and diaper rash and bedsores appeared. Veterok and Ugolek spent their entire lives after the flight in the vivarium of the Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine. By the way, the record for the longest flight of dogs was broken five years later: Soviet cosmonauts spent 23 days, 18 hours and 21 minutes at the Salyut orbital station.
On November 3, 1957, 60 years ago, Sputnik 2 entered low-Earth orbit. Together with him, the first warm-blooded animal, the dog Laika, ended up beyond the boundaries of the earth’s atmosphere, which began the era of space travel with a crew on board. The purpose of this launch was “to determine the very possibility of living beings staying at altitudes of up to 100-110 km after being thrown there using rockets, subsequent ejection and parachute descent.”
We've collected animals that have sacrificed their lives in the space race and left the surface of the Earth, from the Soviet dog Laika to the American chimpanzee Ham.
Iranian monkey
Iranian state television said it had successfully sent a monkey into space - but did not provide any details about the project. The monkey experiment is part of the Iranian space program. Previously, this country successfully launched a mouse, a turtle and worms into orbit. Iran has made no secret of its desire to send an Iranian astronaut into space, but the US and its allies are concerned that technology from the space program could also be used to develop long-range missiles. Meanwhile, some scholars are skeptical that Iran can pull off such a project, while others dismiss it as something that was already achieved at the expense of the world's major powers nearly 70 years ago.
Laika
Despite the fact that many animals who have been in space have returned home, not all have succeeded. Laika took part in the history of space exploration in 1957, but was also sacrificed for the final frontier. Hastily placed aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2, she was the first animal in orbit. But the Soviet space program had no plans to return the satellite, and Laika died after a few hours in space.
Able
On May 28, 1959, Able the macaque (pictured above) and Baker the squirrel monkey were launched 480 kilometers above the Earth's surface aboard an American Jupiter rocket. From their "cabin" in the forward compartment, they returned safely to Earth, but Able died due to the administration of anesthesia several days later, when doctors tried to remove the electrode. She followed in the footsteps of Albert the macaque, who in 1949 became the first animal in space, traveling 135 kilometers aboard the V-2 but dying on impact with Earth.
Baker
Able's companion, Baker, was photographed wearing the BIOPACK bag she lived in during the flight. After returning to Earth, she lived to the ripe old age of 27 and died in 1984.
Brave, Snowflake and Marfusha
In July 1959, two dogs, Brave (left) and Snowflake (not in the photo), went into space along with the rabbit Marfusha, who was also called Little Marfa (right). Brave became an experienced pilot, completing five flights in total.
Miss Sam
Miss Sam the macaque - the mate of another monkey, Sam - was one of NASA's lead test monkeys. She helped test the escape mechanism for astronauts if they encountered problems during launch. On January 21, 1960, she was sent in the Mercury capsule. Miss Sam reached a speed of 2,900 kilometers per hour and rose to a height of 15 kilometers by the time she was returned to the Atlantic Ocean. In the photo she is in her spacesuit.
Belka and Strelka
A couple of Soviet dogs that left their mark on history. On August 19, 1960, after a year of training, they became the first animals to return safely from space orbit. In fact, they were not alone, they were accompanied by a rabbit, 40 mice, a couple of rats and several flies and plants. In this photo they are at a press conference three days after their historic flight.
Ham
11 days after JFK became the first Catholic in the White House, NASA made Ham the first chimpanzee in space. Unlike Kennedy, Ham was not Native American, but was originally from West Africa. Despite the fact that the flight was 68 kilometers higher and 2,400 kilometers per hour faster than expected, Ham tolerated it well, experiencing only slight dehydration and fatigue. In this photo, he rests aboard a rescue boat after being pulled from the Atlantic Ocean.
Felix
In October 1963, France sent the first cat into space aboard the Véronique rocket. Although not as famous as his cartoon namesake, Felix was featured on a 1992 stamp issued by the Comoros government.
Unnamed squirrel monkeys
With the advent of the space shuttle, NASA decided to test it on monkeys. long term consequences stay in space. In 1985, the agency sent two squirrel monkeys - they had no names - and two dozen white rats aboard the Challenger. Here two of them look through the glass while floating in the air. Both monkeys returned safely to Earth.
frogs
An astronaut holds a frog aboard the space shuttle Endeavor in 1992. NASA sent frogs into space to study how weightlessness affects amphibian eggs fertilized and hatched in space.
Frog
No, it's not Alien: it's a frog, an Earth creature sent into space aboard Columbia in 1997 to study the effects of reduced gravity on nervous system. Scientists chose the frog because its ear is similar in structure to a human ear.
Mouse mission to Mars?
What's next for animal space explorers? They could help answer questions about a person's further journey deeper into solar system. A team of scientists hopes to send mice into Earth orbit aboard a satellite designed to simulate the gravity of Mars - the satellite sits between the weightlessness of space and Earth's gravity - to see how they react.
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On August 19, 1960, the USSR launched the Sputnik 5 spacecraft with live cargo on board - dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice and two rats. After this, the dogs Belka and Strelka became one of the first animals to make an orbital space flight and return to Earth unharmed.
For Cosmonautics Day, we are talking about them and some other animals that have been in space.
Dogs Belka and Strelka.
After the flight of the dog Laika in 1957, which did not return to Earth (more about her will be discussed later), it was decided to send the dogs on a daily orbital flight with the possibility of returning to Earth in a descent module. For the space flight, it was necessary to select dogs with a light color (so they are better visible on the monitors of observation devices), whose weight does not exceed 6 kg, and whose height is 35 cm, and they must be female (it is easier for them to develop a device for relieving themselves ). And besides, the dogs had to be attractive, because perhaps they would be featured in the media. The outbred dogs Belka and Strelka were suitable for all these parameters.
As part of the preparation of these animals for flight, they were taught to eat jelly-like food, which was designed to meet the need for water and nutrition on board the ship. And the most difficult thing was to teach the dogs to spend a long time in a small cramped container in isolation and noise. To do this, Belka and Strelka were kept for eight days in a metal box comparable in size to the container of the descent module. At the last stage of training, the dogs were tested on a vibration stand and a centrifuge.
Two hours before the launch of Sputnik 5, which occurred on August 19, 1960 at 11:44 Moscow time, a cabin with dogs was placed in the spacecraft. And as soon as it took off and began to gain altitude, the animals experienced very rapid breathing and pulse. The stress stopped only after Sputnik 5 took off. And although most of the flight the animals behaved quite calmly, during the fourth orbit around the Earth, Belka began to fight and bark, trying to take off her belts. She felt sick.
Subsequently, after analyzing this condition of the dog, scientists decided to limit human space flight to one orbit around the Earth. Belka and Strelka completed 17 complete orbits in approximately 25 hours, covering a distance of 700 thousand km.
It is also worth noting that Belka and Strelka were stand-ins for the dogs Chaika and Lisichka, who died during the launch of the Vostok 1K No. 1 spacecraft on July 28, 1960. Then the rocket fell to the ground and exploded at 38 seconds.
Laika dog.
The very first animal launched into Earth orbit was the Soviet dog Laika. Although there were two more contenders for this flight - stray dogs Mukha and Albina, who had already made a couple of suborbital flights earlier. But scientists took pity on Albina, because she was expecting offspring, and the upcoming flight did not involve the astronaut returning to Earth. This was technically impossible.
So, the choice fell on Laika. During training, she spent a long time in a mock-up container, and just before the flight she underwent surgery: breathing and pulse sensors were implanted. A few hours before the flight, which took place on November 3, 1957, the container with Laika was placed on the ship. At first she had an increased heart rate, but it returned to almost normal values when the dog was in zero gravity. And 5-7 hours after the launch, having completed 4 orbits around the Earth, the dog died from stress and overheating, although it was expected that she would live for about a week.
There is a version that death occurred due to an error in calculating the satellite's area and the lack of a thermal control system (during the flight the temperature in the room reached 40°C). And also in 2002, an opinion appeared that the death of the dog occurred as a result of the oxygen supply being cut off. One way or another, the animal died. After this, the satellite made another 2,370 orbits around the Earth and burned up in the atmosphere on April 14, 1958.
However, after the failed flight, a number of more tests were carried out with similar conditions on Earth, since a special commission from the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers did not believe in the existence of a design error. As a result of these tests, two more dogs died.
The death of Laika was not announced ahead of schedule for a long time in the USSR, transmitting data on the well-being of the already dead animal. The media reported his death only a week after the dog was launched into space: it was said that Laika had been euthanized. But, of course, they learned about the true causes of the animal’s death much later. And when this happened, it caused unprecedented criticism from animal rights activists in Western countries. Many letters came from them expressing protest against the cruel treatment of animals, and there were even sarcastic proposals to send the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev into space instead of dogs.
The famous newspaper The New York Times, in its issue of November 5, 1957, called Laika “the shaggiest, loneliest and most unfortunate dog in the world.”
Monkeys Able and Miss Baker.
Before humans started going into space, several animals were sent there, including monkeys. The Soviet Union and Russia sent monkeys into space from 1983 to 1996, the United States from 1948 to 1985, and France sent two monkeys in 1967. In total, about 30 monkeys have taken part in space programs, and none of them has flown into space more than once. Early in the development of space flight, mortality among monkeys was extremely high. For example, in the United States, more than half of the animals involved in launches from 1940 to 1950 died during the flights or shortly after them.
The first monkeys to survive flight were Able the rhesus monkey and Miss Baker the squirrel monkey. All previous space flights with monkeys on board ended in the death of the animals from suffocation or failure of the parachute system.
Able was born at the Kansas Zoo (USA), and Miss Baker was purchased from a pet store in Miami, Florida. Both were taken to the Naval Air Medical School in Pensacola (USA). After training, in the early morning of May 28, 1959, the monkeys were sent into space aboard a Jupiter AM-18 rocket from Cape Canaveral. They rose to an altitude of 480 km and flew for 16 minutes, nine minutes of which they were in zero gravity. The flight speed exceeded 16,000 km/h.
During the flight, Able had high blood pressure and rapid breathing, and three days after the successful landing, the monkey died during the removal of the electrodes implanted in her body: she could not bear the anesthesia. Sensors were implanted into the brain, muscles and tendons to record movement activity during flight. Miss Baker died on November 29, 1984 at the age of 27 from kidney failure. She has reached the maximum age for her species.
Able's stuffed animal is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. And Miss Baker is buried on the territory of the US Space and Rocket Center in Hunstville (Alabama). On her tombstone there is always her favorite delicacy - several bananas.
Dog Zvezdochka.
18 days before Yuri Gagarin's flight, the USSR sent Sputnik 10 into space with the dog Zvezdochka on board. This single-orbit flight took place on March 25, 1961. In addition to the dog, there was a wooden dummy “Ivan Ivanovich” on board the ship, which, as planned, was ejected.
The ship with Zvezdochka on board landed near the village of Karsha in the Perm region. That day the weather was bad, and the search group did not start searching for a long time. However, the descent vehicle with the dog was found by a passerby, who fed the animal and allowed it to warm up. A search party arrived later.
This flight was the final check of the spacecraft before flying into space with a person on board. However, Zvezdochka was not the last dog to be sent into space.
Chimpanzee Ham.
Born in Cameroon, Africa, the chimpanzee Ham was the first hominid sent into space. In July 1959, three-year-old Ham began to be trained to perform tasks in response to specific light and sound signals. If the chimpanzee performed the task correctly, he was given a banana ball, and if not, he received an electric shock to the soles of his feet.
On January 31, 1961, Ham was launched on the Mercury-Redstone 2 spacecraft from Cape Canaveral on a suborbital flight that lasted 16 minutes and 39 seconds. After its completion, the capsule with Ham splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, and a rescue ship discovered it the next day. Ham's flight was the penultimate one before American astronaut Alan Shepard's flight into space (the last was the flight of the chimpanzee Enos).
After the chimpanzee's flight, Ham lived for 17 years at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C., before being transferred to the North Carolina Zoo, where he remained for the rest of his life. Ham died at the age of 26 on January 19, 1983.
Rats Hector, Castor And Pollux.
To study mammal vigilance in zero gravity, scientists in 1961 decided to send rats into space on the Veronique AGI 24 weather rocket, developed in France. For this purpose, electrodes were inserted into the rat's brain to read brain signals. Moreover, the first surgical interventions to implant electrodes took about 10 hours, and the mortality rate during such operations was extremely high. The rodent on which the experiment was carried out was used only for 3-6 months due to the aging of the animal and necrosis of the skull, which was caused by the glue that fixed the connector to the skull.
Thus, the first flight of a rat on a Veronique AGI 24 took place on February 22, 1961. During it, the rat was held in an extended position in a container using a special vest. In this case, the first rat that was placed in the container gnawed through a bundle of cables that read information, for which it was replaced by another rat.
40 minutes after launch, the rat, as planned, was evacuated from the rocket, and the next day it was brought to Paris. There, journalists who met the scientists with the rodent gave the rat the nickname Hector. 6 months after the flight, Hector was euthanized to study the effects of weightlessness on the electrodes in his body.
Nevertheless, Hector's flight was not the last in the study of animal vigilance in conditions of weightlessness. At the next stage, a paired launch was carried out with an interval of three days, which should have made it possible to observe two animals in parallel. So, on October 15, 1962, Veronique AGI 37 was launched with rats Castor and Pollux.
For technical reasons, the missile began its flight later than planned, and due to the loss of VHF communication with the search helicopter, the warhead separated from the missile was discovered only an hour and 15 minutes later. During this time, Castor died from overheating, since the temperature in the container in which he was upside down exceeded 40 °C.
Pollux, sent into space on October 18, 1962, suffered the same fate. Search helicopters were never able to locate the warhead with the container containing the animal.
Felicette the cat.
At the third stage of studying animal vigilance in conditions of weightlessness, cats were used. On the streets of Paris, scientists caught 30 stray cats and cats, after which they began preparing the animals for flight, including spinning in a centrifuge and training in a pressure chamber. 14 cats passed the selection, among which was Felix the cat.
Felix had already been prepared for the flight and had electrodes implanted in his brain, but in the last minutes the lucky man was able to escape. The astronaut was urgently replaced: the cat Felicette was chosen.
The suborbital flight on the Veronique AGI47 rocket took place on October 18, 1963. The state of weightlessness lasted 5 minutes 2 seconds. After the flight, the rescue service discovered a capsule with a cat separated from the rocket 13 minutes after launch. And according to the data obtained after the flight, the cat felt well.
Felicette quickly became famous, and the flight was hailed by the media as an outstanding achievement. However, photographs of a cat with electrodes implanted in its head that accompanied the publication in the press aroused criticism from many readers and fighters against cruelty to animals.
And on October 24, 1963, another space flight took place under similar conditions with a cat on board. The animal with the unnamed number SS 333 died because the head of the rocket with the capsule was found only two days after its return to Earth.
Dogs Veterok and Ugolyok.
The first longest flight in the history of astronautics was made by the dogs Veterok and Ugolyok. The launch took place on February 22, 1966, and the flight ended 22 days later (the Kosmos-110 biosatellite landed on March 17).
After the flight, the dogs were very weak, they had a strong heartbeat and constant thirst. In addition, when the nylon suits were removed from them, it was discovered that the animals had no hair, and diaper rash and bedsores appeared. Veterok and Ugolyok spent their entire lives after the flight in the vivarium of the Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine.
By the way, the record for the longest flight of dogs was broken five years later: Soviet cosmonauts spent 23 days, 18 hours and 21 minutes at the Salyut orbital station.
Animals in space are animals sent into outer space on spacecraft for research purposes. Before humans entered space in 1961, animal flights were intended to test whether future astronauts could survive a flight, and if so, how the flight might affect their health. In the era of manned astronautics, animals are sent into space to study various biological processes, the effects of microgravity, and for other purposes.
Dogs
The first experiments with sending dogs into space began in 1951. Suborbital flights were performed by the dogs Gypsy, Dezik, Kusachka, Fashionista, Kozyavka, Unlucky, Chizhik, Damka, Brave, Baby, Snowflake, Mishka, Ryzhik, ZIB, Fox, Rita, Bulba, Button, Minda, Albina, Redhead, Joyna, Palma, Brave, Motley, Pearl, Malek, Fluff, Belyanka, Zhulka, Button, Belka, Strelka and Zvezdochka. On November 3, 1957, the dog Laika was launched into orbit. On July 26, 1960, an attempt was made to launch the dogs Bars and Lisichka into space, but 28.5 seconds after launch their rocket exploded. The first successful orbital flight with a return to Earth was made by the dogs Belka and Strelka on August 19, 1960. The last test launch of an artificial Earth satellite (the fifth unmanned spacecraft “Vostok”) before Yu. A. Gagarin’s flight included the dog Zvezdochka and a dummy cosmonaut, whom the future space explorers named Ivan Ivanovich. The “dress rehearsal” was successful - after a trip around the world, the expedition returned safely to Earth: the dog was returned, the dummy was ejected and returned by parachute. Three days later, at a conference at the Academy of Sciences, all the eyes of those present were fixed on Belka, Strelka and Zvezdochka, but no one paid attention to Gagarin, who was sitting in the front row.
Laika's heroic mission made her one of the most famous dogs in the world. Her name is indicated on a memorial table with the names of fallen cosmonauts, installed in November 1997 in Star City.
Laika, in a special space capsule in Sputnik II.
Life-size replicas of the Sputnik spacecraft with two mannequin dogs, on display in Moscow.
Laika ( close-up), a dog used to transmit biomedical information in the space program.
Two dogs sent into space by the Soviet Union after their safe return to Earth. They spent 22 days in orbit.
USSR postage stamp. 1966. Coal and Veterok in space
A pack of Soviet cigarettes with a picture of Laika, the first dog in space. Remember, smoking is harmful to your health (not only yours).
Monkey
The monkeys closest to humans in physiology were repeatedly launched into suborbital and orbital flights both before and after the first human flight into space. The US launched the monkey into space initially between 1948-1961, with one flight each in 1969 and 1985. France launched monkeys into suborbital flights in 1967 and Argentina in 1969-1970. The Soviet Union and Russia launched monkeys between 1983 and 1996. A total of 32 monkeys have flown into space; each had only one mission. Monkeys from several species were used, including rhesus macaques (the majority), cynomolgus and squirrel monkeys, as well as pig-tailed macaques. As part of the Mercury program, chimpanzees Ham and Enos flew to the United States.
In 1959, Sam, a rhesus monkey, flew into space on the Little Joe 2 spacecraft to an altitude of 53 miles as part of the Mercury program. A monkey named Boney, also launched in 1959, felt ill in orbit and died upon return to Earth.
On May 28, 1959, aboard a Jupiter AM-18 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Able, a rhesus monkey, and Miss Baker became the first monkeys to return safely to Earth after traveling into space (a suborbital flight at altitude over 50 miles). They flew at speeds exceeding 16,000 km/h and withstood an overload of 38 g (373 m/s²). Abel died soon after landing: when doctors removed the implanted sensors from her, she could not stand the anesthesia. Baker lived until 1984 and died at the age of 27. She is buried on the grounds of the US Space and Rocket Center in Hunstville, Alabama. Abel, however, has been preserved and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. Their names were taken from the phonetic alphabet.
Cats
Cats have only been launched into space by France. It is believed that Felix the cat made a successful suborbital flight, although many sources claim that the first cat in the world to fly into space was Felicette.
On October 18, 1963, France launched a rocket into near-Earth space with a cat on board. Twelve animals took part in preparations for this flight; the main candidate for the flight was Felix the cat. He underwent intensive training and was approved for the flight. However, shortly before launch, the cat escaped and was quickly replaced by Felicette.
The launch of a rocket with an “astrocat” (as Felicette was later nicknamed by newspapers) was carried out from a test site in the Sahara Desert. She reached an altitude of 200 kilometers, where the capsule with the cat separated and parachuted to the ground. The experiment went well, the cat was removed from the capsule alive and unharmed. Nothing is known about her life after the momentous flight.
The second launch attempt on October 24 of the same year was, according to some sources, an orbital one and unsuccessful - the return capsule did not fulfill the calculated descent command and returned to Earth 2 days later, when the animal, not named by name, was already dead.
Turtles
As part of the “USSR lunar program,” flight design tests of the 7K-L1 spacecraft included studying how the successful launch of the 7K-L1 spacecraft No. 9 was carried out on September 15, 1968. On board the spacecraft, named in the press “Zond-5”, were living objects: two Central Asian tortoises, fruit flies, beetles, tradescantia with buds, Hela cells in culture, seeds of higher plants - wheat, pine, barley, chlorella algae on various nutrient media, different types of lysogenic bacteria, etc.
On September 21, 1968, the Zonda-5 descent module entered the Earth's atmosphere along a ballistic trajectory and splashed down in the waters Indian Ocean. When the sailors from the Soviet ship were preparing the descent module for lifting onto the deck, they heard something rustling inside the device, and then the sound of an impact followed. Again there was a rustling sound and again a blow... They assumed that the device was obviously equipped with a self-liquidator. Work was suspended until the scientists working with Zond 5 were contacted. From them, the sailors learned that the turtles, which were placed as experimental animals in the testing compartment, were rustling. The descent module was lifted aboard the Soviet expeditionary oceanographic vessel Vasily Golovin and on October 3, 1968, delivered to Bombay, from where it was sent by plane to Moscow. The turtles were removed from the descent module already in Moscow, in the TsKBEM workshop, and were handed over to scientists. The flight was tolerated by the turtles normally, but according to some reports, one of them, due to an overload that reached 20 units upon landing, had his eyes pop out of his socket.
After returning to Earth, the turtles were active - they moved a lot and ate with appetite. During the experiment, they lost about 10% in weight. Blood tests did not reveal any significant differences in these animals compared to controls. Zond-5 was the first in the world to fly around the Moon and 7 days after launch returned to Earth, entering the atmosphere at the second escape velocity.
The USSR also launched turtles into orbital flights aboard the unmanned Soyuz-20 spacecraft on November 17, 1975 (during which a 90-day record for animals in space was set) and aboard the Salyut-5 orbital station on June 22, 1976 .
On February 3, 2010, two turtles made a successful suborbital flight on a rocket launched by Iran.
Inspection of turtles - the first animals to fly around the Moon in the Zond-5 spacecraft. Participating: V. D. Blagoe, Yu. P. Semenov, V. A. Remenny, A. G. Reshetin, E. V. Shabarov, ...
Other animals that have been in space include mice, guinea pigs, salamanders, frogs, fish, and spiders.
