we-are-star-stuff:

odditiesoflife:

The First Animal Astronauts

These pioneering space animals did not volunteer to travel into space, but their adventures captured the imagination of millions as they watched these animals make history.

• Laika, a mixed-breed dog, was the first living being in orbit. She was launched on the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 2 mission in November of 1957.
• A rhesus monkey named Sam is shown after his flight in December of 1959, which tested the launch-escape system of NASA’s Mercury spacecraft.
• Enos the chimpanzee being readied for his orbital spaceflight of November 1961.

Laika was the first traveller into space. If you feel like being really depressed, read about how she died:

…in October of 2002, during a gathering of the World Space Congress in Houston, Texas, it was revealed by Dr. Dimitri Malashenkov of the Institute for Biological Problems in Moscow, that after five to seven hours following the launch of Sputnik-2, no lifesigns were being received from Laika. By the fourth orbit, it was apparent that the little dog had passed away from overheating and stress…undoubtedly an exceedingly painful and distressful death.

[In 1998], one of the former lead scientists who had worked on the Soviet “animals-in-space” program expressed his deep regrets regarding Laika:

“The more time passes, the more I’m sorry….
We shouldn’t have done it….
We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.”

Chimpanzees are picked because they have physical and mental characteristics similar to man - and because they can’t say no.

They weren’t “brave” or “heroes” because they didn’t had a choice. “Victims” would be more appropiate.