• Question: what animals have been into space?

    Asked by lizziewimborne to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 13 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      The very first living creature from Earth was a dog called Laika, the Russians launched her into space in 1957. She died up there pretty soon afterwards so in hindsight it was pretty cruel.
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2367681.stm

      Some ants went into space in 2003 in the space shuttle Columbia as part of a student experiment, and there are many more. There’s a wikipedia page with all the details!
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_in_space

      g

    • Photo: Amy Tyndall

      Amy Tyndall answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      I think monkeys were amongst the first creatures to be sent into space… If I remember correctly, Laika was the first animal to enter an orbit, and not simply space itself. I think they’ve had a chick on the ISS too, I vaguely remember watching a video of this poor little thing flapping around!

    • Photo: Martin Archer

      Martin Archer answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      They’ve done some pretty cool experiments on the ISS with spiders too to see how they spin webs in a weightless environment, here’s a video http://youtu.be/kisbP1L2JMk

Comments