This week I woke up to the news that water animals like baby squids (around 128 of them) and water bears (around 5000 of them) will be travelling to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX craft. I was curious to know which are the other lucky animals that have been on a space trip apart from the astronauts, cosmonauts and taikonauts.
I was surprised to know that way back in 1783 AD itself, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier sent a sheep, a duck, and a rooster on a hot air balloon. Thereafter many animals were sent into the sky and many experiments were conducted on the animal’s ability to withstand radiation, low pressure and other challenges in surviving above the ground.
However, after the World War II, the space research programs became more active. The first animals sent into space were fruit flies in the year 1947 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico in the USA. Two years later, in 1949, Albert II, became the first monkey to travel to space on 14 June 1949 from the USA.
In the next decade – during the 1950s the Soviet space program used a number of dogs for sub-orbital and orbital space flights. In 1957, Laika – a Russian country dog, became the first animal to go around the orbit on the Sputnik-2 spacecraft. Later, in 1959, Marfusha – a rabbit, was sent to space on the Soviet R2 rocket.
Around the same time, from USA, the Jupiter IRBM rocket carried a squirrel monkey. In 1959, a rhesus monkey and another squirrel monkey were sent to space. The monkeys went upto an altitude of 579 km and survived the flight in good condition. Later, in the same year, the Jupiter AM-23 rocket had carried 2 frogs along with 12 mice.
In the 1960’s, animals from various species were sent to the space. In 1960, the Sputnik 5 carried the dogs Belka and Strelka, along with a gray rabbit, 40 mice, 2 rats, and 15 flasks of fruit flies. It became the first spacecraft to carry animals into orbit and return them alive. In 1961, Ham the Chimp was launched by USA and in the same year, Russians sent for the first time into space, a guinea pig.
As the space research expanded, in 1963, France launched Félicette the cat which had electrodes implanted into her brain, and the recorded neural impulses were transmitted back to Earth. In 1966 and 1967 parasitic wasps, flour beetles, frog eggs, and amoebae were sent to the space. In 1968, two tortoises, sent from Russia, became the first animals to go to deep space, as well as the first to circle the Moon. The tortoises were accompanied by wine flies and meal worms.
In 1972, five pocket mice, Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey, circled the Moon for six days! In 1975, the first fish (a mummichog) and the first spiders traveled on an America-Russia joint mission. In 1980, the Soviet Union sent zebra danio, stick insect eggs, and the first newts in space. In 1989, chicken embryos (fertilized eggs) were sent into space.
In the 1990s, dormant brine shrimp, sand desert beetles, quail eggs, crickets, snails, carp, medaka (rice fish), oyster toadfish, sea urchins, swordtail fish, gypsy moth eggs, brine shrimp (Artemia salina), and jellyfish were also sent to space.
The new millennium, i.e the 2000’s, saw more varieties travel to space - silkworms, garden orb spiders, carpenter bees, harvester ants, and Japanese killifish (medaka), brine shrimp cysts, gypsy moth eggs. etc traveled to space in 2003. In the 2006 and 2007, the Genesis I Inflatable Space Module launched animals such as Madagascar hissing cockroaches and Mexican jumping beans (containing live larvae of the moths), South African flat rock scorpions and seed-harvester ants. The larvae of painted lady and monarch butterfly traveled to space in 2009.
By the 2010s, a Aquatic Habtat was constructed within the Kibo module in the International Space Station. By 2014, medaka fish and pavement ants were residents there. Later that year, 5 geckos also traveled to outer space.
Phew, I never thought so many animals would have traveled to the outer space. If you think I have missed out any, please do let me know.