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Laika the Space Dog pioneered the animal astronaut program in 1957, but she was only the first in a long line of brave animals to explore space. The former Soviet Union sent a number of canine cosmonauts into orbit, other animals sometimes accompanied them. In August of 1960, Sputnik 5 was launched with Belka and Strelka, two canine astronauts, onboard. They were joined on their voyage by 40 mice and 2 rats. Sputnik 9, launched in March of 1961, propelled yet another dog, Chernushka, into orbit, this time accompanied by a guinea pig and some mice. While the Soviet Union focused on dogs, the U.S. chose
to use simian space explorers. In 1958, after launching three mouse "payloads" in the noses of rockets, the United States shot Gordo, a squirrel monkey -- who was also known as "Old Reliable" -- into space aboard the Jupiter AM-13. A rhesus monkey named Able and a spider monkey named Baker followed Gordo in May of 1959 aboard the Jupiter Missile AM-18. Happily, they were the first living beings "recovered" after their space trip. Another rhesus monkey named Sam took off in December of 1959. Miss Sam followed suit in January
of 1960. In January of 1961, the first chimp braved space travel when Ham took flight aboard the Mercury-Redstone 2. In November of 1961, Enos became the second chimp in space. France launched the first cat into space, a black and white stray from the streets of Paris named Felix. Onboard Shenzhou II, China sent a rabbit and some snails. Various other space missions have included amoebas, fruit flies, spiders, crickets, hornets, wasps, worms, jellyfish, goldfish, minnows, oyster toadfish, newts, quail, bullfrogs, and tortoises. And of course, no round up of animal astronauts would be complete without a mention of our favorites -- "Pigs in Space." Although the majority of animals were sent into space as a precursor to launching human astronauts, animals continue to brave the final frontier, sometimes accompanying humans and sometimes flying solo, even though animal rights activists continue to lobby against such experiments. Recent efforts to launch a new kind of animal into space have been put on hold for the time being.
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