Space Exploration by Nita Mallick

Author:Nita Mallick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Britannica Educational Publishing
Published: 2016-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

The Soviet Union’s Sputnik 2 satellite, launched on November 3, 1957, carried the dog Laika, the first living creature to be shot into space and orbit Earth.

As the tempo of preparations for manned spaceflight increased in the Soviet Union and the United States, those countries sent a number of dogs and chimpanzees on spaceflights that orbited Earth. The journey of Enos, a chimpanzee, was typical of these flights. The 5½ -year-old primate made two orbits in a U.S. Mercury spacecraft on November 29, 1961. While in flight, it ate, drank, and performed psychomotor tests for which it had been trained. Enos survived the mission and was safely recovered. Spaceflight had no apparent effect upon the animals’ ability to bear normal offspring.

Of course, after human beings began traveling in space, important data were obtained by studying the human astronauts themselves. But, from the U.S. Biosatellite program of the late 1960s to experiments carried out aboard the U.S. space shuttles and the International Space Station in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, researchers continued to use the unique conditions of space to perform a wide variety of scientific experiments on living things of all kinds—including animals, plants, and microscopic organisms. In addition to conducting experiments relating specifically to space exploration, scientists have used the virtual absence of gravity to investigate an array of fundamental biological and physical processes.

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