A History of Animals in Space

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[{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1485844068954","data":"The space race is one of the most productive and beneficial effects of the cause that was the Cold War. Soon after the turn of the 19th century, with the world moving to the 20th, mankind had begun to set it sights skyward with the invention of the airplane, and with the exception of two very costly wars, mankind zoomed into the field of space exploration with exceptional speed. <\/p>Venturing into the unknown can be dangerous, and this was one of the major reasons for sending animals into space - to test if a living form could survive out in space. The very first instance of sending an animal into space was as early as 1947, when fruit flies were sent into space in a US V2 rocket, and since then animals like monkeys, chimpanzees, mice and even dogs have been sent to space.  <\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1485845035352","data":"589032ab125d3"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1485845116435","data":"With fruit flies and moss being launched on the V2 rocket by the United States in 1947, the first official record of animals being sent to space was made. The rocket reached a height of 109 kilometers off the ground, and after the experiment was done, the flies were recovered alive and well. The second, and perhaps the first living being to perish in a space mission, Albert II, a Rhesus monkey (pictured above) died in a crash after the parachute failed to deploy. Albert was the first of many monkeys that would be sent to space, often under anesthesia as the launch would be very traumatic on the animals, and the study of their behavior was essential in making space travel safer for humans in later years.  <\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1485845520223","data":"5890348f02376"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1485845598192","data":"Perhaps the most famous space animal from the 50s, Lakia, was a Moscow street dog, was picked for the space program in 1957, and is credited with being one of the major factors of putting man into space just four years later in 1961 when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Lakia unfortunately died due to overheating after a structural failure in the spacecraft, but the official reason of death was not revealed years after the fall of USSR, until then the Soviets had maintained that the dog had died due to lack of oxygen being a threat and was euthanized prior to suffocating. <\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1485846011981","data":"58903942e7f4a"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1485846092942","data":"The sixties marked the most important decade of space travel as it was proven without a shadow of a doubt that man could indeed, travel to space, work outside in vacuum and zero gravity and even land on the moon. The year before Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space, the Soviets launched Sputnik 5, which carried the dogs Belka and Strelka, along with a gray rabbit, 40 mice, 2 rats, and 15 flasks of fruit flies and plants, and became the first mission to bring back all these animals alive, paving the way for the future of space travel. <\/p>This was as the cold war was beginning to get colder and was reaching a tipping point, the US was not to be left behind, speeding up the space race themselves. On January 31st, 1961, Ham the Astrochimp was launched into space in the Mercury-Redstone program, a precursor to America's own first manned space mission, Mercury. Ham traveled to space and launched in the Atlantic ocean, safely, and was the defining moment in the American Space Flight Program before Alan Shepard became the first American to travel to space, and the second human to do so. <\/p>"},{"type":"img","id":"img-uid-1485846810042","data":"5890399cdf3f9"},{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1485846894479","data":"Today, there are ants being studied on the International Space Station. From being used as a test to see if humans would be able to make the trip to space, to being studied by humans on behavior in space, animals have paved a way to put man into space and will continue to pave the way for man to replicate life on distant planets in the future. Certain animal rights group have long criticized the use of animals in the pursuit of space travel and research, but the question on whether we would be where we are today without the contribution of animals to space travel is something we may never be able to tell. <\/p>Here's to all the chimps, mice, ants, bugs, and dogs that have been to space. <\/p>  <\/p>"}]

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