Reluctant Heroes: Astronaut Animals whose stories inspire both admiration and pity in people

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Before launching humans into space, scientists naturally needed to test flights on animals. As you know, a lot of such experiments turned out to be unsuccessful and ended in the death of the test subjects. Well, those of our smaller brothers, who bravely survived the flight and returned to Earth alive, experienced severe stress and torment. So these furry pioneers can be safely called hero cosmonauts. And they deserve no less honors than Squirrel and Sterlka.

Kitty Felicette (France)

Felicette is in fact the only member of the feline family whose flight has been officially recorded.

The French Center for Aviation Medicine trained several cats for space flights at once. The animals were rotated on centrifuges and subjected to other loads, training them to fly. The first to launch into space was the gray tabby cat Felix, there were even rumors that it actually happened, but later it turned out that the flight did not take place. They say that shortly before the flight, the animal managed to escape from the laboratory. The escaped Felix was replaced by the cat Felicette, or rather, at the time of the flight she did not yet have a name, but received it already upon her return to Earth, becoming a world famous.

There is another version, according to which this cat was originally planned to be launched into space first, since by nature it was the most calm and hardy of all four-legged candidates, and the escaped cat did not apply for this role.

Before the start of the unfortunate cat, electrodes were implanted in the head, which made it possible to observe its neurophysiological processes throughout the flight. In the world of space science, such research has become a real breakthrough.

On October 24, 1963, the cat ascended into space on the Veronique AGI47 rocket and stayed in zero gravity for a little more than five minutes, after which the capsule with the kitty separated from the spacecraft and landed on Earth by parachute.

The cat tolerated the flight normally and felt well. Information about her "feat" spread all over the world, making Felicette famous, although animal advocates expressed outrage at the fact that electrodes were implanted in her head. The cat remained to live in the laboratory, where its body continued to be studied, but a few months later, scientists euthanized her - ostensibly for the purpose of further research.

After Felicette, the French tried to send another cat into space, but alas, the launch was unsuccessful and the animal did not survive.

Mongrels Veterok and Ugolyok (USSR)

Few people know that, in addition to Belka and Strelka, there was another heroic pair of four-legged astronauts in the USSR, who also returned safely to Earth. The dogs Ugolek and Veterok took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome on February 22, 1966 on the Cosmos-110 biosatellite and stayed in space for a record time at that time - 22 days. Only a few years later, this record was broken by Soviet cosmonauts, who completed a 24-day flight.

Before the flight, these dogs and 28 of their "colleagues" who were also undergoing training, had their tails docked, as it turned out that they would interfere with the operation of the exhaust system. Unfortunately, two out of 30 four-legged patients died after surgery.

Long before the start, for a long time, the dogs were locked in cramped cabins and kept like that for many days, imitating a flight. Experiments have shown that the most optimal period for their stay in space is about 20 days (the unfortunate dogs could not stand it any longer).

Before the flight, Veterka and Snezhka (that was the original name of Ugolka, but it was renamed just before the start) did a number of other operations, again for scientific purposes. In addition, each was installed a probe through which food was supposed to enter the stomach during the flight.

From the moment of launch and throughout the entire 22-day space journey, the dogs were observed from Earth via telemetry. Scientists recorded that the first 7-8 days Ugolok and Veterok were very worried and felt bad, their movements were uncoordinated, and only on the 8-9th day they finally came to terms with the situation and began to behave more or less calmly.

When the flight ended and the scientists, having opened the capsule with the landed dogs, took off their elastic suits, the hearts of the people sank. The dogs could not stand, their hair partially fell out, and diaper rash and bedsores were gaping on their skin. In addition, they had heart palpitations and were constantly thirsty.

During the flight, the dogs were exposed to strong radiation and underwent enormous stress, but this experiment was very important for the organization of subsequent flights of people.

Fortunately, both dogs quickly recovered and subsequently even gave birth to healthy puppies. Until the end of their days, they lived at the Institute of Biomedical Problems.

Monkeys Able and Miss Baker (USA)

I must say, monkeys, like dogs, were often sent into space. This was done by the USSR, the USA, France, and a total of three dozen primates made such flights. At first, such experiments often ended in the death of animals, and the first monkeys to return to Earth alive were the rhesus monkey named Able and the squirrel monkey Miss Baker. The researchers took one of these monkeys from the Kansas zoo, and the second was bought from a pet store.

The monkeys took off on the Jupiter AM-18 rocket on May 28, 1959. The flight duration was 16 minutes, more than half of this time they were in zero gravity.

During the flight, the animals had a hard time. The monkey Able felt the worst, with a very rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure and heavy, rapid breathing. The unfortunate animal died shortly after landing on Earth during the removal of implanted electrodes - the heart, which received a serious load in space, could not stand the anesthesia.

Miss Baker was more fortunate: her health quickly recovered, and she lived 27 years, which is considered a record long time for this species of monkeys.

She was buried at the Space and Rocket Center in Alabama, where she lived after her flight into space. Instead of flowers, visitors put bananas on her tombstone.

Space flights still generate a lot of rumors. For example, for more than a decade, everyone who is passionate about the topic of space has asked the question: Did Gagarin have predecessors that we do not know about, and if so, who are they?