jolly much ever since human discovered flight , we ’ve been strapping animals into our novel devices just to see what would hap .
Over the last 330 year or so , we ’ve set in motion dog , true cat , chimps , monkey , roosters , ducks , spiders , yield flies , silk worm , ants , bee , moss , turtle , rabbits , jellyfish , amoebae , fish , hamster , Numida meleagris pig , goldfish , and one Enlightenment - era sheep — into the air , into orbit , and into space . While it was difficult to choose which of these brave , history - cook animals were our pet , here ’s a list of just some of those that made us smile .
The Montgolfier Three
On a sunny September afternoon in 1783 , two French brothers loaded a duck’s egg , a rooster and a sheep into a raging - air balloon , and launched them into the sky , making that unassuming barnyard triumvirate the first living existence ever to soar above the earth by human - design baron . While the duck , rooster and sheep hark back to earth and , presumptively , outrank and file farm life , the brothers Montgolfier — Joseph - Michel and Jacques - Etienne — were raise to grandeur by King Louis XVI , just a few year before the French Revolution made that title oh - so - gauche .
Albina and the Gypsy Girl
Perhaps taking a page out of the Montgolfier brothers ’ book , the ethnic music at the Soviet Space Program were big on strapping frankfurter ( now affectionately known as “ Space Dogs ” ) into their garden rocket and space shuttles , just to see what would encounter . While a figure of these brave immature ladies — all of the dogs who went to blank were distaff , on report of the outer space suit design — died in the course of the Space Race , we ’re singling out Albina and Tsyganka , which means “ Gypsy girl ” in Russian , for exceptional credit because , well , because they were ejected out of a capsule 53 miles above the earth ’s surface in especially - equip doggy spacesuits , and somehow survived .
The most famous of the Soviet Space Dogs is probably Laika , who the American press dubbed “ Muttnik , ” and who was the first Earthling ever to go into orbit , although she died a few hr into the stumble due to focus and overheating . ( The Russians , shut up by the formidable Cold War - epoch propaganda machine , did n’t come clean about that unfortunate snafu until 2002 . )
Belka and Strelka
These famous Space Dogs were the first animals to go into orbit and make it back alive , along with their fellow passengers : a grey lapin , forty - two mice , two squealer and a pack of tent-fly . The achiever of Belka and Strelka ’s journey was no small affair in 1960 , the height of the Space Race , and it paved the path for their human fellow worker , Yuri Gagarin , who became , eight months later , the first person to do what they had done . Strelka , for her part , was a born star . When she returned to earth , she get together with another male Space Dog and had puppies , one of which , Fluffy , was given to John F. Kennedy ’s girl Caroline as a diplomatic gift from Nikita Khruschchev . Fluffy kick the bucket on to shack - up with one of the Kennedys ' wiener , Charlie , and have four more puppies of her own ( “ pupniks , ” as JFK call up them ) . Belka and Strelka ’s legacy populate on , both in puppies and in a Russian animated movie , “ Belka and Strelka : Star Dogs , ” which get along out in 2010 .
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Baker and Able
In May 1959 , a tiny squirrel monkey nominate Baker and a rhesus monkey imp named Able became the first two animals to fly into outer space in the olfactory organ cone of a ballistic missile , and repay animated . During their journey , these two simian Lady give a height of about 360 miles above the world and were weightless for nine minutes . When they splashed back down to earth , they were collected by a U.S. Navy ship , taken to an air - conditioned officers ' way , and fly to Washington , D.C. under military escort , where they immediately became home heroes . Their haired petty faces were splashed all over U.S. newspapers and on the cover of LIFE .
Unfortunately , Able expire shortly thereafter during a medical procedure , and was afterward stuffed and displayed at the Smithsonian ’s National Air and Space Museum . As for Baker , she survive another quarter century , mostly at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville , Alabama . According to NPR , Baker received 100 to 150 letters a day from shoal kid all across the country up until her death in 1984 , when 300 mass attended her funeral . To this day , well - wishers still leave flower and banana at her grave accent .
Ham the Chimp
In January 1961 , NASA launched athree - year - old Pan troglodytes named Haminto space . Over the course of Ham ’s harrowing journey , the aura pressure regulator got mess up , the rocket over - accelerated , the trajectory was overshot by 42 mile , and Ham was weightless for 1.7 minutes longer than his trainer had expected . When Ham ’s space vehicle last crashed back down to earth , it was 60 miles away from the nearest rescue ship , and it took them nearly 3 hours to get to him . Everyone feared the uncollectible , but Ham , the audacious chimp astronaut that he was , was n’t unnerve . Not only was it subsequently find out that he keep to pull levers throughout the launch , weightlessness and reentry , as he had been trained to do — which demonstrated that humankind could perform labor in quad , too ; Ham go forth from the abridgement entirely whole and hungry . According NASA criminal record , he proceed to corrode an Malus pumila and half an orange .
Ham ’s unbelievable victory set a major sea change for NASA : if they could get a chimp into space , they reckoned , they could get a man into space , too . And they did . Three month later , the United States sent Alan Shepard into quad .
Space water bears
mental image credit : Goldstein Lab
Yeah , you say that right . Space Dogs was so last time of year . It ’s Space water put up now . In 2007 , the European Space Agency senta grouping of tiny tardigrades , do it as “ piddle bear ” because of their form , into space and discovered that these tough little guys are able to hold out 10 days of vulnerability to open place with only their natural protection . No outer space suits , no oxygen tanks , no imperativeness encapsulate , just themselves . These unbelievably sturdy little tool are know to be able-bodied to exist in temperatures below -459 Fahrenheit and above 304 degree Fahrenheit , and withstand 1,000 fourth dimension more radiation therapy than other animals . They are , in other lyric , nature ’s innate animal spaceman .
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