Which animal goes to moon first

Nearly a half-century later, Russian officials found themselves handling PR fallout once again after it was revealed that reports of Laika’s humane death were greatly exaggerated. Although they had long insisted that Laika expired painlessly after about a week in orbit, an official with Moscow’s Institute for Biological Problems leaked the true story in 2002: One of Laika’s human counterparts in the Soviet space program recalled her as a good dog. He even brought her home to play with his children before she began her space odyssey. “Laika was quiet and charming,” Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote in a book about Soviet space medicine, Read TIME’s 1957 take on Laika’s launch, here in the archives: More Must-Reads From TIME • • Coping With Grief on Father's Day • What Even Is Black MirrorAnymore? • Ethan Hawke Wants You to Know You’re in Charge of Your Life • The Very Online Campaign of RFK Jr. • What It Means to Have Intrusive Thoughts • The Greenwashing of the Clothing Rental Trend • The Best Podcasts of 2023 So Far Contact us at

These tortoises are not astronauts. These African spurred tortoises (Centrochelys Sulcata) live at a zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, May 17, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / Ulises Ruiz) Tortoises in space On September 14, 1968, the Soviet space program sent two tortoises -- along with some flies and worms -- into space for a trip around the moon. NASA calls it “the first successful circumlunar mission carried out by any nation.” After a week-long trip, the tortoises landed on Earth by parachute in the Indian Ocean. They traveled back to Moscow on October 7. Both tortoises survived the trip but not the experiment. dissected on October 11, 1968, to see how their bodies were affected by the space travel. Dissection showed that “the main structural changes in the tortoises were caused by a lack of food and not the space travel.” The tortoises had lost about 10 percent of their body weight. But they had stayed active and showed no loss of appetite. When compared with a control group of tortoises on Earth, the space traveling creatures had a small amount of spaceflight-related atrophy. When parts of the body atrophy, they decrease in size or waste away. The experiment demonstrated that the animals could travel around the moon and survive. But this did not mean that humans could do the same. That possibility required more testing. Other animal space travelers While tortoises were the first to travel around the moon, other animals have helped humans understand and explore space. On its website, In...

Laika was a black-and-white mutt originally named Kudrayavka, or Little Curly. Her later name, which means Barker, came about when she barked during a radio interview. (In the U.S. press, she was sometimes called Muttnik.) Laika weighed about 13 pounds (6 kilograms) at the time of her flight, Laika's launch pad to fame were the streets of Moscow. Soviet rocket scientists wanted to send dogs to space to better understand what launch, From these, the rocket engineers selected the most obedient and those most tolerant of loud noises and air pressure changes. The researchers also subjected final candidates to test runs in small capsules — some lasting for weeks, according to Laika's back-up was named Albina (White); rumors suggest that the Russian spaceflight engineers made Laika their first choice because they were more attached to Albina, who had recently had puppies. Laika's mission: Sputnik 2 A model of Laika inside the Sputnik 2 capsule on display at the Central House of Aviation and Cosmonautics in Moscow in 2017. (Image credit: Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images) Sputnik 2 launched just a month later; according to The spacecraft was much larger and more elaborate than its predecessor. The spacecraft was 13 feet (4 meters) tall and 6.5 feet (2 m) at its widest, and it weighed 1,120 lbs. (508 kg), Laika could sit or lie down in the cabin, which was equipped with an air regeneration system and padding. Laika, decked out in a harness, a crude sanitation device and a set of...

Russia's Zond 5 spacecraft carried two steppe tortoises on the first successful flight around the moon. The tortoises lived through their splash down in the Indian Ocean and were returned safely to Moscow, proving life could survive the trip around the moon. (Credit: S.P. Korolev RSC Energia/Courtesy of NASA) Anders. Borman. Lovell. The names of the first three humans to journey around the moon will echo throughout eternity. But these brave Apollo 8 astronauts were actually not the first earthlings to complete the voyage. Two tortoises beat NASA to the moon by a matter of months. Fifty years ago today, on September 18, 1968, the Soviet Union’s Zond 5 spacecraft circled the moon, ferrying the first living creatures known to have orbited another world. On board were two Russian steppe tortoises along with some worms, flies and seeds. “It really was one of those last hurrahs for the Soviet spaceflight program because it was one of the last times they were able to preempt the Americans in any real way,” says Cathy Lewis, the international space program curator for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Beating the Russians But understanding why the Russians sent tortoises instead of cosmonauts requires a quick dive back in time to 1968. More than a decade had passed since Sputnik terrified the West with Soviet spaceflight superiority. And thanks to infighting and funding shortfalls, Russia had fallen far behind in the moon race. NASA now had the Saturn V rocket. And ...

Question:What was the first animal to land on the moon?.Answer:No animal has ever landed on the moon yet. Question:What was the first animal sent into space? Answer: A dog named Laika was the first animal sent into space. The small female Russian Samoyed, who traveled in a pressurized cabin aboard the Soviet artificial satellite Sputnik 2,was launched on November 3, 1957. Laika became the first living creature to go into orbit.Unfortunately, the trip ended badly for the pioneering dog—she died a few days into the voyage. As the Soviets experimented with dogs, the United States decided on a monkeys for a flight in 1958. Two female monkeys, Able and Baker, made the American maiden voyage into orbit aboard the spacecraft Jupiter on May 28, 1959. They returned alive, having traveled 300 miles (483 kilometers). No animal has ever landed on the moon! Animals have been in space since the 1940's. First of all fruit flies were sent up in a US launched rocket, called V2, in the year 1946. But the first animal in space was Albert II on 14th June 1949. (The first Albert had died). Albert II died on impact because his parachute failed ! Various monkeys were sent into space during the 1950's and 60's. The first animal to actually go into orbit was a soviet dog called Laika who was a Russian launched dog, but he died on the flight. Even the French launched Felix the cat into space and he survived the trip. When animals are launched into space they are usually fitted with sensors to ascer...

These tortoises are not astronauts. These African spurred tortoises (Centrochelys Sulcata) live at a zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, May 17, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / Ulises Ruiz) Tortoises in space On September 14, 1968, the Soviet space program sent two tortoises -- along with some flies and worms -- into space for a trip around the moon. NASA calls it “the first successful circumlunar mission carried out by any nation.” After a week-long trip, the tortoises landed on Earth by parachute in the Indian Ocean. They traveled back to Moscow on October 7. Both tortoises survived the trip but not the experiment. dissected on October 11, 1968, to see how their bodies were affected by the space travel. Dissection showed that “the main structural changes in the tortoises were caused by a lack of food and not the space travel.” The tortoises had lost about 10 percent of their body weight. But they had stayed active and showed no loss of appetite. When compared with a control group of tortoises on Earth, the space traveling creatures had a small amount of spaceflight-related atrophy. When parts of the body atrophy, they decrease in size or waste away. The experiment demonstrated that the animals could travel around the moon and survive. But this did not mean that humans could do the same. That possibility required more testing. Other animal space travelers While tortoises were the first to travel around the moon, other animals have helped humans understand and explore space. On its website, In...

Question:What was the first animal to land on the moon?.Answer:No animal has ever landed on the moon yet. Question:What was the first animal sent into space? Answer: A dog named Laika was the first animal sent into space. The small female Russian Samoyed, who traveled in a pressurized cabin aboard the Soviet artificial satellite Sputnik 2,was launched on November 3, 1957. Laika became the first living creature to go into orbit.Unfortunately, the trip ended badly for the pioneering dog—she died a few days into the voyage. As the Soviets experimented with dogs, the United States decided on a monkeys for a flight in 1958. Two female monkeys, Able and Baker, made the American maiden voyage into orbit aboard the spacecraft Jupiter on May 28, 1959. They returned alive, having traveled 300 miles (483 kilometers). No animal has ever landed on the moon! Animals have been in space since the 1940's. First of all fruit flies were sent up in a US launched rocket, called V2, in the year 1946. But the first animal in space was Albert II on 14th June 1949. (The first Albert had died). Albert II died on impact because his parachute failed ! Various monkeys were sent into space during the 1950's and 60's. The first animal to actually go into orbit was a soviet dog called Laika who was a Russian launched dog, but he died on the flight. Even the French launched Felix the cat into space and he survived the trip. When animals are launched into space they are usually fitted with sensors to ascer...

Laika was a black-and-white mutt originally named Kudrayavka, or Little Curly. Her later name, which means Barker, came about when she barked during a radio interview. (In the U.S. press, she was sometimes called Muttnik.) Laika weighed about 13 pounds (6 kilograms) at the time of her flight, Laika's launch pad to fame were the streets of Moscow. Soviet rocket scientists wanted to send dogs to space to better understand what launch, From these, the rocket engineers selected the most obedient and those most tolerant of loud noises and air pressure changes. The researchers also subjected final candidates to test runs in small capsules — some lasting for weeks, according to Laika's back-up was named Albina (White); rumors suggest that the Russian spaceflight engineers made Laika their first choice because they were more attached to Albina, who had recently had puppies. Laika's mission: Sputnik 2 A model of Laika inside the Sputnik 2 capsule on display at the Central House of Aviation and Cosmonautics in Moscow in 2017. (Image credit: Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images) Sputnik 2 launched just a month later; according to The spacecraft was much larger and more elaborate than its predecessor. The spacecraft was 13 feet (4 meters) tall and 6.5 feet (2 m) at its widest, and it weighed 1,120 lbs. (508 kg), Laika could sit or lie down in the cabin, which was equipped with an air regeneration system and padding. Laika, decked out in a harness, a crude sanitation device and a set of...

Nearly a half-century later, Russian officials found themselves handling PR fallout once again after it was revealed that reports of Laika’s humane death were greatly exaggerated. Although they had long insisted that Laika expired painlessly after about a week in orbit, an official with Moscow’s Institute for Biological Problems leaked the true story in 2002: One of Laika’s human counterparts in the Soviet space program recalled her as a good dog. He even brought her home to play with his children before she began her space odyssey. “Laika was quiet and charming,” Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote in a book about Soviet space medicine, Read TIME’s 1957 take on Laika’s launch, here in the archives: More Must-Reads From TIME • • Coping With Grief on Father's Day • What Even Is Black MirrorAnymore? • Ethan Hawke Wants You to Know You’re in Charge of Your Life • The Very Online Campaign of RFK Jr. • What It Means to Have Intrusive Thoughts • The Greenwashing of the Clothing Rental Trend • The Best Podcasts of 2023 So Far Contact us at

Russia's Zond 5 spacecraft carried two steppe tortoises on the first successful flight around the moon. The tortoises lived through their splash down in the Indian Ocean and were returned safely to Moscow, proving life could survive the trip around the moon. (Credit: S.P. Korolev RSC Energia/Courtesy of NASA) Anders. Borman. Lovell. The names of the first three humans to journey around the moon will echo throughout eternity. But these brave Apollo 8 astronauts were actually not the first earthlings to complete the voyage. Two tortoises beat NASA to the moon by a matter of months. Fifty years ago today, on September 18, 1968, the Soviet Union’s Zond 5 spacecraft circled the moon, ferrying the first living creatures known to have orbited another world. On board were two Russian steppe tortoises along with some worms, flies and seeds. “It really was one of those last hurrahs for the Soviet spaceflight program because it was one of the last times they were able to preempt the Americans in any real way,” says Cathy Lewis, the international space program curator for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Beating the Russians But understanding why the Russians sent tortoises instead of cosmonauts requires a quick dive back in time to 1968. More than a decade had passed since Sputnik terrified the West with Soviet spaceflight superiority. And thanks to infighting and funding shortfalls, Russia had fallen far behind in the moon race. NASA now had the Saturn V rocket. And ...