Name: Ming-ting H.
ProgramYear: 2004
Submit Date: Jun 4, 2004
Review Date:

History of Animals in Space One very important aspect of the history of space travel is the animals that travel into space. Animals have been used in space travel since the beginning stages of the new space era and have led to great advancements in space technology. In the mid-1900s, before humans could go up into space, they depended on other animals to supply knowledge about the effects of space travel on all different types of animals. The animals that were sacrificed for this reason also showed how weightlessness would change different animals and how bodies react to the new conditions of outer space. Animals other than humans were first used in the late 1940s, after World War II had ended and the Cold War and space race between the United States and Russia began. Wernher von Braun had developed the V-2 rocket and allowed the United States to test it at White Sands in New Mexico. During its test flights, the rocket carried fruit flies high into the atmosphere with the purpose of exploring the effects of high radiation in space. Although the flights were only about 100 kilometers above ground, they were considered to be flights flown into space. The important outcome of these flight tests is that using the fruit flies, the necessity of a life support system on any high-altitude flight was discovered. Other animals that have flown on V-2 rockets are primates since they are the most similar animals to humans and scientists thought that humans and primates would react the same way to the space environment. Rhesus monkeys named Albert 1, 2, 3, and 4 were flown almost all the way into space to see how they would cope in the different surroundings. They survived for most of the trip but died on impact during the landing of the spacecraft, showing that more needed to be done about making sure that the landing gear on spacecraft functions properly before liftoff. Early on, the United States Air Force was involved with creating rocket projectiles to use in fighting but also making advancements in spacecraft for humans. To test their Aerobee rockets, they made two significant flights with animals on board the rocket from 1951 to 1952. The first flight was with Yorick, a monkey and 11 mice and although they did not technically reach space, this flight is recorded as the first animal flight near space where the animals inside the spacecraft survived. The last Aerobee rocket flight on May 22, 1952 had two mice and two monkeys on board. Using these to study, scientists had a video camera focused on the animals to see how acceleration, deceleration and weightlessness affected the animals. The mice were witnessed floating in the container that held them but it seemed as if they adjusted quickly to the weightlessness, proving that animals, including humans would easily adjust to microgravity in space. Then, Russian scientists grew more ambitious and sent the first dogs in space, Albina and Tsyganka. They were flown in a rocket up almost out of the Earth’s atmosphere by the Soviet Union and then safely landed back on Earth. This flight set the precedent for the famous Russian dog named Laika or Muttnik, as named by the US, who actually went into space on November 3, 1957. After seeing that the two dogs earlier that year had survived their trip up to the edge of the Earth, some scientists from the Soviet Union believed that organisms from Earth could survive in the space environment, but didn’t want to risk any human lives. Their solution to prove their belief was to send man’s best friend aboard the Sputnik 2, an artificial space satellite, to be the first animal to actually go into orbit around the Earth. Unfortunately, she did not survive the flight, not because she could not handle being in space, but because the support system failed after a while. During the first part of the flight, Laika was constrained by a harness that provided resistance against the microgravity and electrodes connected all over its body sent vital data down to Earth so any changes due to the change in environment could be noticed. This pioneering mission ended up sparking a whole new line of missions into space with other animals in tow. When the United States heard of Laika’s flight, they were determined not to let the Soviet Union outdo them in the space race so they sent their own set of animals up into space to test the life support system and functions of the first manned flight program of NASA, the Mercury program. Rather than sacrifice humans, NASA sent Rhesus monkeys Sam and Miss Sam high up into space in Mercury capsules on Little Joe rockets. They tested restraints on the chairs in the capsule that would be used in the future to protect astronauts while they were accelerating into space and back to Earth. The equipment successfully kept the monkeys safe so NASA sent a chimpanzee, Ham, on another Mercury capsule to further test the spacecraft and make sure that the functions they wanted humans to perform on the spacecraft could be performed, especially during vital times such as the launch and reentry. The capsule was launched too forcefully and landed off target back on Earth but Ham survived, proving that even if there was a little mistake like the one experienced during this flight, humans could survive sometimes. Another chimpanzee, Enos, was sent up on yet another Mercury capsule just to test the capsules again and completed his tasks in space correctly. These Mercury animal flights led directly to the US’s first human sub-orbital flight with Alan Shepard on board and John Glenn as the first American to orbit Earth. Several other NASA flights were important in their great contributions to the advancement of understanding how living organisms live in space. The Biosatellite program was specifically designed to enhance people’s knowledge of what impact living in space has on organisms. In 1967, Biosatellite 2 contained many fruit flies to determine how sensitive living things are to the changing levels of radiation in space. The next Biosatellite mission carried Bonny, a pig-tailed monkey with the purpose of investigating the effect of spaceflight on the brain, body systems and behavior, but he got sick from the loss of body fluids and the mission had to be aborted. This revealed to NASA that health was an important issue in spaceflight that had to be protected well. A few years later, the Orbiting Frog Otolith satellite was launched to find out more about the effects of a frog’s otolith, which is similar to the vestibular system in humans. Both respond to changes in one’s orientation with the pull of Earth’s gravity. Changes were witnessed in the otolith of the two bullfrogs that flew on this mission because of microgravity, but they adjusted quickly, going back to their normal state as on Earth soon after they had first experienced the change in gravity. NASA has also flown strange organisms into space, such as Arabella, a spider, on the Skylab 3 space station. The spider was able to spin a regular web in microgravity but had to practice before its web looked like one it would spin on Earth, since spiders rely on their own weight to spin webs. Russia’s long-running Cosmos space flight program, which ran from the late 70s to the early 90s, also contributed to the knowledge we have today about living organisms in space, although the main objective of these flights were not biological in nature. The flights explored biological mechanisms such as reproduction, circadian rhythms, metabolism and temperature regulation of animals, especially of mammals and primates. They also studied how cardiovascular systems adapt to the environment, skeletal changes, muscular adaptations and radiation effects on organisms in space. Even the animals that the program sent into space was unique, the list including rats and Japanese quail. When scientists realized that astronauts were very weakened after coming back from the microgravity environment in space in the 80s, they sent more monkeys into space on the Spacelab, to test ways to prevent the deterioration of the body during spaceflight and motion sickness, including more vigorous exercise and greatly increased fluid intake. They also sent rats in the Spacelab with new technology to hold the animals inside the spacecraft called the Research Animal Holding Facility or RAHF, this was a revolutionary way of studying animals in space since it provides everything necessary to maintain the animals in a smaller amount of room. Most recently, the United States has been busy with animals flying on almost every mission to space if there is enough room for them. The Space Shuttles developed include a compartment called the Animal Enclosure Module (AEM), much like the RAHF, so that the spacecraft is much more animal-friendly. It is like a small animal laboratory that includes everything that the astronauts can use to study the animals and items to make the flights more comfortable for the animal. For this reason, more and more animals have been flown to space in recent years. In 1998, the space shuttle Columbia on flight STS-90, took 170 rodents, 229 swordtail fish, 135 snails, 4 oyster toad fish, and 1,500 cricket eggs and larvae to study in space. Using this great variety of organisms, the astronauts on board learned how the microgravity of space influences brains and nervous systems in hopes that this might help everyone understand animals in general better and maybe to apply their learning to humans. This past year, the same space shuttle carried many organisms to study into space, but as it reentered Earth, the shuttle exploded into pieces. The only organisms found to still be alive were worms known as C. elegans that were studied on the Columbia to test a synthetic nutrient that might be able to help malnourished humans in the future. Since the Columbia tragedy, no more flights have been taken with the space shuttles and most spaceflight has been centered on exploring Mars. There is no doubt though that with this large history of animals in space, that there will be more missions to the Moon or Mars or anywhere else in space dealing with animals. They have advanced people’s understanding and will continue to do so as long as they can travel into space. Sources: http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/newsletters/v6n2/6n2borko.htm#living, http://www.spacetoday.org/SpcShtls/ColumbiaExplosion2003/ColumbiaExplosion.html, http://www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/Dogs.html, www.neurolab.jsc.nasa.gov/ustime.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_in_space