Animal Astronauts

Today human astronauts come and go, rocketing into space via a variety of public and private transports following the Soviet’s Yuri Gagarin initial assent April, 1961. But animals were first.

Many have served as pioneers. Venturing some 109km into the air, the official distance defining where space begins, and then beyond animals began paving the way for human space travel. Starting in the 1940s animals were sent skyward to learn about the effects of orbiting in the atmosphere including how they fared aloft and how well they were able to resume a normal earth existence. Early engineers and scientists from the countries exploring space— the United States and the Soviet Union – organized to analyze the large and small effects on those adventurous animals. Some attempts to launch and retrieveanimals went better than others.

Good news: In 1947 scientists in the United States launched a troop of fruit flies (they are genetically similar to humans) to check on the impact of cosmic radiation. The flies’ transport was a ballistic missile from which their canister was parachuted down to earth. They were fine.

Studies on animals carried on. By 1951, the US had launched a monkey who made it up and back in the company of 11 mice as did the two monkeys and two white mice on a follow-up trip. That same year the Soviets sent up two dos who reached 100 kilometers and returned successfully. The first great ape astronaut was a chimpanzee NASA launched into space and returned safely in 1961. Back down to earth, he lived until 1983. Amphibians did their part too. In 1970 NASA launched two bullfrogs as subjects to study the effects of space travel on motion sickness. After their ride they returned to live normal bullfrog lives on earth. In 1973, two garden spiders made a trip to space. The study: to find out if they could still spin webs in space thus testing the effects of microgravity on motor response. Both spiders did manage to spin webs that were slightly finer than those spun on earth. In 2007 tardigrades, microscopic invertebrates able to deal with almost anything on earth including lack of oxygen, radiation, freezing cold, dehydration, were, perhaps not surprisingly, the first animals to survive an out of the rocket experience of orbiting in outer space of 10 days. Experiments continue on with ever more sophisticated testing with the help of animals.

All this to better prepare for last September’s commercial spacewalk by a civilian from on a SpaceX mission. Ready?