The Noah’s Ark of the space race
IT WAS in 1957, three and a half years before Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, that a dog called Laika was the first living creature to orbit the Earth.
The stray from Moscow is one of many animals that preceded humans in the conquest of space. Like most of the others, she did not survive.
“These animals performed a service to their respective countries that no human could or would have perfo the US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) website says.
“They gave their lives and/or their service in the name of technological advancement, paving the way for humanity’s many forays into space.”
In June 1948, rhesus monkey Albert I was the first mammal to be sent up to space in a rocket, on a Nasa mission to test its reaction to weightlessness. He reached 63km in altitude, just below the start of outer space at 100km. A year before, the US sent fruit flies to an altitude of 100km in a V-2 rocket.
Tsygan and Dezik in August 1951 were the first dogs on a sub-orbital flight for the Soviets, returning alive.
But the first full orbit of Earth by a living being was by Laika, a small mongrel picked up in the street and sent up in Soviet Sputnik 2 on November 3 1957, enclosed in a metal container. Initial reports said she had withstood the 1 600km journey from Earth but it emerged that she died after a few hours due to a malfunction in the rocket’s equipment.
In August 1960 the Soviet Union sent something of a Noah’s Ark into space, including dogs Belka and Strelka, a rabbit, 40 mice, two rats and 15 flasks of fruit flies and plants. It was the first orbital flight from which animal passengers returned alive. Strelka later gave birth to a litter of six puppies, one given to US president John F Kennedy as a gift for his children.
Research with Ham, the first chimpanzee in space, in January 1961 paved the way for the first space flight by an American, Alan Shepard, one month after Gagarin’s historic mission in April 1961. Fellow-chimp Enos became the only animal from the US to be sent into orbit in late 1961, just before John Glenn circled the Earth.
In October 1963 France became the first country to send a cat into space. Felicette replaced Felix, who ran away on the eve of the departure.
In 2001 China, seeking to join the small club of space powers, sent a craft into orbit with rats aboard. In 2003 it sent its own astronauts into space.
In 2010 Iran, which wants to send a man into space, announced it had successfully tested a locally made rocket containing several animals including a rat, tortoises and worms.
As global space agencies work furiously towards sending people to Mars by the 2030s, questions of survival in deep space are being explored with the help of animals.
In September 2007 researchers said miniscule eight-legged invertebrate creatures known as “water bears”, or tardigrades, can survive the vacuum, extreme temperatures and ultraviolet radiation of open space.
In 2014 Japanese scientists announced the survival of mouse sperm that had been freeze-dried and spent nine months on the International Space Station 400km above the planet. Back on Earth, the sperm was used to fertilise embryos in vitro to produce healthy offspring that grew into normal adult mice. — AFP