The Animals Of Space
Over the many years that spaceflight has existed, it was not only mankind that has visited the outer walls of this planet. As the space race began and passed, animals became a test subject for man to use in their rockets. Sadly however, not all animals that went to space returned. In fact several monkeys were sent to space, none of them came back alive. Their names lie, carved on stone graves. They were named Albert I, II, III, and IV. This may seem absolutely absurd and mental, but “the deaths of these animals wasn’t an act of cruelty nor for no reason, it was for science.” as one could say.
Among all of these valiant animals were some ones that stood out. Laika, a dog sent into space by the Sovient Union, died within 5 hours of the mission. Dogs cannot withstand the amount of heat that is created by the trip out of the atmosphere and the heat in space itself. Laika was hastily trained after being picked up from the Russian streets. Soon after, Laika was blasted into space. This lack of training resulted in her death.
But dogs were not the only animals sent into space by American and Russian scientists. Actually, a wide variety of animals were launched to space such as: Apes, cats, tortoises, mice, frogs, rabbits, insects, and birds. I can tell you some absurd stories of some animals who made history. One of the most popular animals in this list was a pioneer, a monkey named Miss Baker, quite literally rode a rocket (more specifically, the Jupiter IRBM) to space. And what's even more crazy is that two tortoises circled the moon exactly one year before the world’s first moon landing, Apollo 11. AND WHAT’S EVEN CRAZIER is that 5 mice orbited the moon 75 times in the orbiter of the 1972 Apollo 17 mission (the last manned mission to the moon by the US to date.)
Although the sacrifices these many animals and insects made may not have been necessary, they didn’t die for no plain reason. They were launched into space to test survivability and the potential for the upcoming manned missions to space. All of these historic animal missions to space all intended for the animal to come back alive, but at the time, the technology available was no match for the technology we have today. Therefore if only we knew more, these animals wouldn’t be dead. But their death wasn’t meaningless. The knowledge and emotion they left will never be forgotten.
