While many flights into space may have accidentally carried bacteria and other forms of life on board, the first living creatures intentionally sent into space were fruit flies. These were transported aboard a V2 rocket on 20 February 1947.
On 19 August 1960 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 5 (also known as Korabl-Sputnik 2) which carried the dogs Belka and Strelka, along with a gray rabbit, 40 mice, 2 rats, and 15 flasks of fruit flies and plants. It was the first spacecraft to carry animals into orbit and return them alive.
The first animals to reach space were fruit flies that the United States launched aboard captured German rockets in 1947. The first mammal to reach space was a rhesus monkey named Albert II, who flew two years later.
Laika, a Moscow street dog, became the first creature to orbit Earth, but she died in space.
In 1999, several Russian sources reported that Laika had died when the cabin overheated on the fourth day. In October 2002, Dimitri Malashenkov, one of the scientists behind the Sputnik 2 mission, revealed that Laika had died by the fourth circuit of flight from overheating.
She died alone, she died terrified, and she never knew why. She was the first little canine cosmonaut whose ultimate sacrifice turned dreams of human space travel into reality. For a long time Laika's death was a top secret.
After a week in orbit, the Los Angeles Times reported, she would be fed poisoned food, “in order to keep her from suffering a slow agony.” When the moment came, Russian scientists reassured the public that Laika had been comfortable, if stressed, for much of her flight, that she had died painlessly, and that she had ...
During the launch, her pulse shot up to three times its normal rate and she was so terrified that it remained elevated for an extended time. Temperatures inside the tiny spacecraft quickly soared, and within hours, she cooked to death—all alone and in severe pain. What Laika was subjected to was cruel and inexcusable.
The satellite and its passenger soon acquired the journalistic nickname of “Muttnik.” Contemporaneous Soviet accounts implied that the dog was kept alive for six or seven days into the mission and then euthanized with poisoned food before her oxygen supply could run out.
It's believed that the Sputnik's cooling system did not function properly during her flight. She died from overheating in the ship during the launch process. Laika's body was also never recovered, as the ship was destroyed as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere.
It is believed Laika survived for only about two days instead of the planned ten because of the heat. The orbit of Sputnik 2 decayed and it reentered Earth's atmosphere on 14 April 1958 after 162 days in orbit.
To date, a total of 32 monkeys have flown in space. These species include rhesus macaques, squirrel monkeys and pig-tailed monkeys. Chimpanzees have also flown. On 4 June 1949, Albert II became the first monkey in space, but he died on reentry when the parachute to his capsule failed.
Fruit flies were the first animals to be launched into space. In 1947, they blasted off in a V-2 rocket, reaching an altitude of about 68 miles in less than 200 seconds before returning to Earth by parachute.
Sixty years ago, on November 29, 1961, Enos became the first chimpanzee to orbit the Earth. He flew on NASA's Mercury-Atlas 5 (MA-5) mission, which the relatively new space agency deemed necessary before orbiting an astronaut in a Mercury capsule.
And yet, as unlikely as it sounds, the Apollo crews were actually not the first ones to fly to the Moon. That honour belongs to an unremarkable pair of tortoises, who became the first living creatures to voyage to our Moon.
7 Fascinating Facts About the Tardigrade, the Only Animal That Can Survive in Space. All hail the toughest organism on Earth. Tardigrades are one of the most fascinating creatures on Earth—and the moon.
She reached orbit alive, circling the Earth in about 103 minutes. Unfortunately, loss of the heat shield made the temperature in the capsule rise unexpectedly, taking its toll on Laika. She died “soon after launch,” Russian medical doctor and space dog trainer Oleg Gazenko revealed in 1993.
Clara Glen Pet Cemetery
At the center of the cemetery is the War Dog Memorial that honors the dogs that served in World War I and is encircled with tributes to the space dog Laika (who is not buried in the cemetery), as well as the dogs who helped with search and rescue following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
In summary, Laika was launched on Sputnik 2, which was a very small and simple satellite without re-entry capability, because the technology to re-enter did not exist yet.
Then suddenly during the ninth orbit of the Earth, the temperature inside the capsule began to soar and reached over 40 degrees celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), due to insufficient insulation from the Sun's rays.
The Russian word laika (лайка) is a noun derived from the verb layat' (лаять, to bark), and literally means barker.
And what of "Man's Best Friend", the brave canines that helped pave the way for "manned" spaceflight? During the 1950s and 60s, the Soviets sent over 20 dogs into space, some of which never returned. Here's what we know about these intrepid canines who helped make humanity a space-faring race!
The First Animals
Sponges were among the earliest animals. While chemical compounds from sponges are preserved in rocks as old as 700 million years, molecular evidence points to sponges developing even earlier.
Finally, in 1999 four ladybugs were sent into space on NASA's space shuttle led by Eileen Collins. Ladybugs and their favorite food, aphids, were sent to zero gravity to study how aphids would get away without the aid of gravity.
While the space jellyfish effect only evokes the animal, actual jellyfish have also visited space. In 1991, NASA sent thousands of small jellyfish into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, to study how they react to microgravity.