{"id":13134,"date":"2022-04-07T12:27:45","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T10:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=205859"},"modified":"2022-04-07T12:42:11","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T10:42:11","slug":"animals-in-space-the-creatures-who-paved-the-way-for-human-travel-beyond-earth","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/animals-in-space-the-creatures-who-paved-the-way-for-human-travel-beyond-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Animals in space: the creatures who paved the way for human travel beyond Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 07 April 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Within hours of launch, Laika was the most famous dog in history. A mongrel \u2013 a dash of husky, a smattering of terrier \u2013 and by all accounts a lovable, sweet-tempered animal, she was now travelling in space about 1,000 miles above the surface of the planet. The date was 3 November 1957, the location of her launch a secret missile site in Soviet Kazakhstan, and her rocket a converted nuclear missile \u2013 the biggest in the world. It needed to be big, because Laika\u2019s mission was to do something no other organism had achieved in the 3.5 billion years since life began: to orbit the Earth, circling it approximately every 90 minutes at 10 times the speed of a rifle bullet.<\/p>\n

Laika wasn\u2019t coming back: the technology didn\u2019t yet exist to bring her home. Nobody doubted that the Soviets had scored a stunning success at the very height of the Cold War, but her grisly fate also earned them the condemnation of animal-lovers in the west. As she circled the planet, strapped and sealed in her tiny, windowless capsule with just seven days\u2019 supply of food and oxygen, the National Canine Defence League in the UK called for a daily minute\u2019s silence, and dog-lovers picketed the UN in New York. What the protesters didn\u2019t know was that Laika was already dead: her capsule had overheated just a few hours after launch. The Soviets would hide that truth for decades.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Monkeys \u2013 including a rhesus monkey named\u00a0Sam, pictured \u2013 were secured in rigid cradles to restrict\u00a0their movements during experimental US space flights;\u00a0this example is from 1959. (Photo by Keystone\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Today, more than 60 years later, Laika is the one space animal most people remember. The astonishing reality, though, is that thousands of animals have been used \u2013 and continue to be used \u2013 in space experiments. The variety of species involved is simply staggering, ranging from dogs, monkeys and chimpanzees to tortoises, rabbits, cats, frogs, bees, spiders, fish, mice, ants, crickets, moths, snails, jellyfish and \u2013 inevitably \u2013 guinea pigs.<\/p>\n

Colossal speeds<\/h3>\n

Although Laika was the first animal to make it into orbit, many preceded her on rocket rides to the heavens. The Americans did it first as early as 1948 in a programme called Project Albert, in which a series of rhesus monkeys \u2013 all called Albert \u2013 were inserted into the nose cones of reconstructed German V2 missiles in New Mexico and fired at colossal speeds to the edge of space<\/p>\n

The chances of survival were essentially nil, as everyone involved knew. On the first Albert flight, someone scrawled on the nose cone: \u201cAlas poor Yorick, I knew him well.\u201dMinutes later he was dead after his parachute shredded and he slammed into the ground. Five further Alberts were also launched. All five died. It was effectively a killing operation.<\/p>\n

So why was it done? To the scientists involved, the reasons were clear, urgent and morally justified. The US was waging war against the communists. If space was the next new frontier \u2013 battleground, even \u2013 it was vital to know what would happen to humans in that most hostile of environments.<\/p>\n

On the podcast | Stephen Walker tells Rhiannon Davies about the history of animals in space, from fruit flies and monkeys to Laika the Soviet space dog:<\/strong><\/p>\n