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Prehistoric Observations and beliefs of space (Omar As)

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Prehistoric Observations and beliefs of space (Omar As)

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The ancient Babylonians viewed the Universe as a flat disk of land surrounded by water, They were the first people to keep detailed records of the paths of planets. Like most ancient people, Babylonians believed that studying planetary movements could help them predict the future.

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Between the 8th and 15th centuries, Islamic astronomers produced a wealth of worldly astronomical work. Largely through the astronomical framework, they improved and refined the astronomical system, compiled better tables, and devised instruments that improved their ability to make observations.

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Copernicus: Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer who proposed a heliocentric system, that the planets orbit around the Sun; that Earth is a planet which, besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once daily on its axis.

resource: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolaus-Copernicus

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Who Was Copernicus?

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473 in Torun, a city in north-central Poland on the Vistula River. Copernicus was born into a family of well-to-do merchants, and after his father's death, his uncle-soon to be a bishop-took the boy under his wing. He was given the best education of the day and bred for a career in canon (church) law.

At the University of Krakow (today's Jagiellonian University), he studied liberal arts, including astronomy and astrology, and then, like many Europeans of his social class, was sent to Italy to study medicine and law.

While studying at the University of Bologna, he lived for a time in the home of Domenico Maria de Novara, the principal astronomer at the university. Astronomy and astrology were at the time closely related and equally regarded, and Novara had the responsibility of issuing astrological prognostications for Bologna.

Copernicus sometimes assisted him in his observations, and Novara exposed him to criticisms both of astrology and of aspects of the Ptolemaic system - founded by the ancient mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy - which placed Earth at the center of the universe.

Copernicus later studied at the University of Padua and in 1503 received a doctorate in canon law from the University of Ferrara. He returned to Poland, where he became a church administrator and doctor.

In his free time, he dedicated himself to scholarly pursuits, which sometimes included astronomical work. By 1514, his reputation as a learned mathematician, physician and astronomer was such that he was consulted on matters of currency and coinage, and by church leaders attempting to reform the Julian calendar.

Ptolemaic System

The cosmology of early 16th-century Europe held that Earth sat stationary and motionless at the center of several rotating, concentric spheres that bore the celestial bodies: the sun, the moon, the known planets, and the stars.

From ancient times, philosophers adhered to the belief that the heavens were arranged in circles (which by definition are perfectly round), causing confusion among astronomers who recorded the often eccentric motion of the planets, which sometimes appeared to halt in their orbit of Earth and move retrograde across the sky.

In the second century, Ptolemy sought to resolve this problem by arguing that the sun, planets, and moon move in small circles around much larger circles that revolve around Earth. These small circles he called epicycles, and by incorporating numerous epicycles rotating at varying speeds he made his celestial system correspond with most astronomical observations on record.

The Ptolemaic system remained Europe's accepted cosmology for more than 1,000 years, but by Copernicus' day accumulated astronomical evidence had thrown some of his theories into confusion. Astronomers disagreed on the order of the planets from Earth, and it was this problem that Copernicus addressed at the beginning of the 16th century.

Heliocentric Theory

Sometime between 1508 and 1514, Copernicus wrote a short astronomical treatise commonly called the Commentariolus, or "Little Commentary," which laid the basis for his sun-centered or heliocentric theory, a radical departure from the conventional wisdom of his era. The work was not published in his lifetime.

In the treatise, he correctly postulated the order of the known planets, including Earth, from the sun, and estimated their orbital periods relatively accurately.

For Copernicus, his heliocentric theory was by no means a watershed, for it created as many problems as it solved. For instance, heavy objects were always assumed to fall to the ground because Earth was the center of the universe. Why would they do so in a sun-centered system?

He retained the ancient belief that circles governed the heavens, but his evidence showed that even in a sun-centered universe the planets and stars did not revolve around the sun in perfectly circular orbits.

Because of these problems and others, Copernicus delayed publication of his major astronomical work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi, or "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres," nearly all his life. Completed around 1530, it was not published until 1543 - the year of his death.

What Did Nicolaus Copernicus Discover?

In "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres," Copernicus' groundbreaking argument that Earth and the planets revolve around the sun led him to make a number of other major astronomical discoveries. While revolving around the sun, Earth, he argued, spins on its axis daily. Earth takes one year to orbit the sun and during this time wobbles gradually on its axis, which accounts for the precession of the equinoxes.

Major flaws in the work include his concept of the sun as the center of the whole universe, not just the solar system, and his failure to grasp the reality of elliptical orbits, which forced him to incorporate numerous epicycles into his system, as did Ptolemy. With no concept of gravity, Earth and the planets still revolved around the sun on giant transparent spheres.

In his dedication to "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres"-an extremely dense scientific work-Copernicus noted that "mathematics is written for mathematicians." If the work were more accessible, many would have objected to its non-biblical and hence heretical concept of the universe.

For decades, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" remained unknown to all but the most sophisticated astronomers, and most of these men, while admiring some of Copernicus' arguments, rejected his heliocentric basis.

Death and Legacy

Nicolaus Copernicus died on May 24, 1543 in what is now Frombork, Poland. Largely unknown outside of academic circles, he died the year his major work was published, saving him from the outrage of some religious leaders who later condemned his heliocentric view of the universe as heresy.

One of those critics was Martin Luther, the infamous Vatican critic who was one of the founders of the Reformation. Luther stated that "This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth." The Vatican did eventually ban "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" in 1616.

It was not until the early 17th century that Galileo and Johannes Kepler developed and popularized the Copernican theory, which for Galileo resulted in a trial and conviction for heresy. Following Isaac Newton 's work in celestial mechanics in the late 17th century, acceptance of the Copernican theory spread rapidly in non-Catholic countries, and by the late 18th century the Copernican view of the solar system was almost universally accepted.

Centuries after his burial in an unmarked grave beneath the floor of the cathedral in Frombork, Copernicus' remains were finally given a hero's burial in 2010. His body was identified using DNA analysis of the skull, which matched the DNA found in hairs that were tucked in the pages of books that Copernicus owned.

His black granite tombstone is now marked with a heliocentric model of the solar system featuring a golden sun encircled by six of the planets.

Sources

Nicolaus Copernicus. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University.
Nicolaus Copernicus biography: Facts & discoveries. Space.com.
Vatican bans Copernicus' book. Physics Today.
16th-century astronomer Copernicus reburied as hero in Poland. Associated Press.

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Copernicus: Facts, Model & Heliocentric Theory - HISTORY

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Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer who developed a heliocentric theory of the solar system, upending the belief that Earth was the center of the universe.

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Galileo, Newton, & Copernicus (Ousama &Zaid)

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Galileo, Newton, & Copernicus (Ousama &Zaid)

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Galileo: astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, the strength of materials, and the development of the scientific method.

resource: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwix6ZyM-u_2AhVE4XMBHdvdAFcQFnoECBMQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.britannica.com%2Fbiography%2FGalileo-Galilei&usg=AOvVaw2NF_scRUzLj8RWYtyHrcRq

Newton: Although Isaac Newton is well known for his discoveries in optics (white light composition) and mathematics (calculus), it is his formulation of the three laws of motion the basic principles of modern physics for which he is most famous. His formulation of the laws of motion resulted in the law of universal gravitation

resource: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Newton

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Isaac Newton | Biography, Facts, Discoveries, Laws, & Inventions

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Isaac Newton, the brilliant physicist and mathematician, revolutionized our understanding of the universe with his laws of motion and universal gravitation, forever changing the course of scientific inquiry.

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Galileo video:
Galileo Galilei For Kids - YouTube

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In full:

Galileo Galilei

(Show more)

Galileo (born February 15, 1564, Pisa [Italy]-died January 8, 1642, Arcetri, near Florence) Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, and strength of materials and to the development of the scientific method. His formulation of (circular) inertia, the law of falling bodies, and parabolic trajectories marked the beginning of a fundamental change in the study of motion. His insistence that the book of nature was written in the language of mathematics changed natural philosophy from a verbal, qualitative account to a mathematical one in which experimentation became a recognized method for discovering the facts of nature. Finally, his discoveries with the telescope revolutionized astronomy and paved the way for the acceptance of the Copernican heliocentric system, but his advocacy of that system eventually resulted in an Inquisition process against him.

Early life and career

Galileo was born in Pisa, Tuscany, on February 15, 1564, the oldest son of Vincenzo Galilei, a musician who made important contributions to the theory and practice of music and who may have performed some experiments with Galileo in 1588-89 on the relationship between pitch and the tension of strings. The family moved to Florence in the early 1570s, where the Galilei family had lived for generations. In his middle teens Galileo attended the monastery school at Vallombrosa, near Florence, and then in 1581 matriculated at the University of Pisa, where he was to study medicine. However, he became enamoured with mathematics and decided to make the mathematical subjects and philosophy his profession, against the protests of his father. Galileo then began to prepare himself to teach Aristotelian philosophy and mathematics, and several of his lectures have survived. In 1585 Galileo left the university without having obtained a degree, and for several years he gave private lessons in the mathematical subjects in Florence and Siena. During this period he designed a new form of hydrostatic balance for weighing small quantities and wrote a short treatise, La bilancetta ("The Little Balance"), that circulated in manuscript form. He also began his studies on motion, which he pursued steadily for the next two decades.

In 1588 Galileo applied for the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna but was unsuccessful. His reputation was, however, increasing, and later that year he was asked to deliver two lectures to the Florentine Academy, a prestigious literary group, on the arrangement of the world in Dante's Inferno. He also found some ingenious theorems on centres of gravity (again, circulated in manuscript) that brought him recognition among mathematicians and the patronage of Guidobaldo del Monte (1545-1607), a nobleman and author of several important works on mechanics. As a result, he obtained the chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa in 1589. There, according to his first biographer, Vincenzo Viviani (1622-1703), Galileo demonstrated, by dropping bodies of different weights from the top of the famous Leaning Tower, that the speed of fall of a heavy object is not proportional to its weight, as Aristotle had claimed. The manuscript tract De motu ( On Motion), finished during this period, shows that Galileo was abandoning Aristotelian notions about motion and was instead taking an Archimedean approach to the problem. But his attacks on Aristotle made him unpopular with his colleagues, and in 1592 his contract was not renewed. His patrons, however, secured him the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua, where he taught from 1592 until 1610.

Although Galileo's salary was considerably higher there, his responsibilities as the head of the family (his father had died in 1591) meant that he was chronically pressed for money. His university salary could not cover all his expenses, and he therefore took in well-to-do boarding students whom he tutored privately in such subjects as fortification. He also sold a proportional compass, or sector, of his own devising, made by an artisan whom he employed in his house. Perhaps because of these financial problems, he did not marry, but he did have an arrangement with a Venetian woman, Marina Gamba, who bore him two daughters and a son. In the midst of his busy life he continued his research on motion, and by 1609 he had determined that the distance fallen by a body is proportional to the square of the elapsed time ( the law of falling bodies) and that the trajectory of a projectile is a parabola, both conclusions that contradicted Aristotelian physics.

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Galileo | Biography, Discoveries, Inventions, & Facts

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Galileo, the brilliant Italian polymath, revolutionized our understanding of the universe through his groundbreaking discoveries in astronomy and contributions to scientific methodology.

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In classical Greece, astronomy was a branch of mathematics; astronomers sought to create geometrical models that could imitate the appearances of celestial motions. This tradition began with the Pythagoreans, who placed astronomy among the four mathematical arts (along with arithmetic, geometry, and music). Ancient Greek astronomy was one of the most famous discovered information about space and most of their information is still here now!

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Here , I hope this is helpful =0 (Anwar0\

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Here , I hope this is helpful =0 (Anwar0\

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(Anwar): How to stop space junk ( What is space junk )??

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Space debris: A problem that’s only getting bigger

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After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world's two great powers-the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union-against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space became another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and-by extension-its political-economic system.

Causes of the Space Race

By the mid-1950s, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War had worked its way into the fabric of everyday life in both countries, fueled by the arms race and the growing threat of nuclear weapons, wide-ranging espionage and counter-espionage between the two countries, war in Korea and a clash of words and ideas carried out in the media. These tensions would continue throughout the space race, exacerbated by such events as the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the outbreak of war in Southeast Asia.

Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for "traveler"), the world's first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth's orbit. Sputnik's launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile-seemingly capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space-made gathering intelligence about Soviet military activities particularly urgent.

Did you know? After Apollo 11 landed on the moon's surface in July 1969, six more Apollo missions followed by the end of 1972. Arguably the most famous was Apollo 13, whose crew managed to survive an explosion of the oxygen tank in their spacecraft's service module on the way to the moon.

NASA Is Created

In 1958, the United States launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. That same year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration.

Eisenhower also created two national security-oriented space programs that would operate simultaneously with NASA's program. The first, spearheaded by the U.S. Air Force, dedicated itself to exploiting the military potential of space. The second, led by the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA), the Air Force and a new organization called the National Reconnaissance Office (the existence of which was kept classified until the early 1990s) was code-named Corona; it would use orbiting satellites to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union and its allies.

Space Race Heats Up: Men (And Chimps) Orbit Earth

In 1959, the Soviet space program took another step forward with the launch of Luna 2, the first space probe to hit the moon. In April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit Earth, traveling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok 1. For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project Mercury, NASA engineers designed a smaller, cone-shaped capsule far lighter than Vostok; they tested the craft with chimpanzees and held a final test flight in March 1961 before the Soviets were able to pull ahead with Gagarin's launch. On May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space (though not in orbit).

Later that May, President John F. Kennedy made the bold, public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. In February 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, and by the end of that year, the foundations of NASA's lunar landing program-dubbed Project Apollo -were in place.

Achievements of Apollo

From 1961 to 1964, NASA's budget was increased almost 500 percent, and the lunar landing program eventually involved some 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university contractors. Apollo suffered a setback in January 1967, when three astronauts were killed after their spacecraft caught fire during a launch simulation. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union's lunar landing program proceeded tentatively, partly due to internal debate over its necessity and to the untimely death (in January 1966) of Sergey Korolyov, chief engineer of the Soviet space program.

December 1968 saw the launch of Apollo 8, the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, from NASA's massive launch facility on Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, Florida. On July 16, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins set off on the Apollo 11 space mission, the first lunar landing attempt. After landing successfully on July 20, Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon's surface; he famously called the momen t "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Who Won the Space Race?

By landing on the moon, the United States effectively "won" the space race that had begun with Sputnik's launch in 1957. For their part, the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing craft between 1969 and 1972, including a spectacular launch-pad explosion in July 1969. From beginning to end, the American public's attention was captivated by the space race, and the various developments by the Soviet and U.S. space programs were heavily covered in the national media. This frenzy of interest was further encouraged by the new medium of television. Astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes, and earth-bound men and women seemed to enjoy living vicariously through them. Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.

With the conclusion of the space race, U.S. government interest in lunar missions waned after the early 1970s. In 1975, the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission sent three U.S. astronauts into space aboard an Apollo spacecraft that docked in orbit with a Soviet-made Soyuz vehicle. When the commanders of the two crafts officially greeted each other, their " handshake in space " served to symbolize the gradual improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late Cold War era.

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The Space Race: Timeline, Cold War & Facts | HISTORY

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The Space Race refers to the period of competition over space exploration between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War.

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Modern Space (American vs. Soviet/Russia)- Ousama

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Modern Space (American vs. Soviet/Russia)- Ousama

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How the United States Won the Space Race to the Moon | NASA Documentary

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The first animal, & woman sent to space (Anwar)

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The first animal, & woman sent to space (Anwar)

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For other uses, see Laika (disambiguation).

LaikaOn 3 November, 1957, Laika became the first animal launched into Earth orbit, paving the way for human spaceflight during the upcoming years. This photograph shows her in a flight harness.
Other name(s) | Kudryavka ("Curly")
Species | Canis familiaris
Breed | Mongrel, possibly part-husky (or part-Samoyed) and part-terrier
Sex | Female
Born | Laika (Лайка)
c. 1954
Moscow, Soviet Union
Died | November 3, 1957 (aged 2–3)
Sputnik 2, in Low Earth orbit
Years active | 1957
Known for | First animal to orbit the Earth
Owner | Soviet space program
Weight | 5 kg (11 lb) Part of a series of articles on the
Soviet space program
Soviet crewed lunar programs Luna program
Soviet human spaceflight programs
Soviet space probes
Expendable launch vehicles
Notable figures
Cosmonauts
v t e

Laika (Russian: Лайка; c. 1954 – 3 November 1957) was a Soviet space dog who became one of the first animals in space, and the first animal to orbit the Earth. Laika, a stray mongrel from the streets of Moscow, was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into low orbit on 3 November 1957. No capacity for her recovery and survival was planned, and she died of overheating or asphyxiation shortly before she was to be remotely euthanized via poison.

Little was known about the impact of spaceflight on living creatures at the time of Laika's mission, and the technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, so Laika's survival was never expected. Some scientists believed humans would be unable to survive the launch or the conditions of outer space, so engineers viewed flights by animals as a necessary precursor to human missions.[1] The experiment aimed to prove that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure a micro-g environment, paving the way for human spaceflight and providing scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments.

Laika died within hours from overheating, possibly caused by a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload. The true cause and time of her death were not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out on day six or, as the Soviet government initially claimed, she was euthanised prior to oxygen depletion.

On 11 April 2008, Russian officials unveiled a monument to Laika. A small monument in her honour was built near the military research facility in Moscow that prepared Laika's flight to space. It portrayed a dog standing on top of a rocket. She also appears on the Monument to the Conquerors of Space in Moscow.

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The first animals to reach space were fruit flies that the United States launched aboard captured German rockets in 1947. The first mammal to reach space was a rhesus monkey named Albert II, who flew two years later.

Both these missions were suborbital, as were all animal flights for about a decade. The first animal to orbit Earth was Laika, a dog launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 who died in orbit. The first animals to orbit Earth and land safely were the host of animals on the Soviet Sputnik 5 mission in 1960, led by dogs Strelka and Belka.

In these early days of rocket science, no one knew what spaceflight was like. Engineers flew animals, particularly dogs, monkeys and chimps, to learn how to launch and land living beings safely and to better understand how spaceflight might affect human bodies.

Since then, animals continue to play an important role in understanding the impact of microgravity on many biological functions. Astronauts have studied all kinds of animals - wasps, beetles, tortoises, flies, worms, fish, spiders, rabbits, bees, ants, frogs, mice, crickets, rats, minnows, newts, snails, urchins, moths, brine shrimp, jellyfish, guinea pigs, butterflies, scorpions and cockroaches, among many others.

Photos: Pioneering animals in space

Animal astronaut firsts

Although there is no distinct boundary between the atmosphere and space, an imaginary line about 68 miles (110 kilometers) from the surface, called the Karman line, is usually where scientists say Earth's atmosphere meets outer space.

The first animals to reach space - not counting any bacteria that may have hitched a ride on previous rockets - were fruit flies. On Feb. 20, 1947, the United States put fruit flies aboard captured German V-2 rockets to study radiation exposure at high altitudes. In 3 minutes and 10 seconds of flight, the fruit flies reached an altitude of 68 miles.

The first mammal in space was Albert II, a rhesus monkey launched by NASA who reached an altitude of 83 miles (134 km) on June 14, 1949. Albert was anesthetized during flight and implanted with sensors to measure his vital signs but died upon impact at re-entry.

While the United States chose monkeys to stand in for humans on the earliest flights, the Soviet Union used dogs instead. The first dogs launched, Tsygan and Dezik, were aboard the R-1 IIIA-1. The dogs reached space on July 22, 1951, but did not orbit. They were the first mammals successfully recovered from spaceflight.

The first animal to orbit Earth was Laika, another Soviet dog who launched in 1957. American reporters dubbed her "Muttnik" as a pun on Sputnik, which the Soviet Union had launched about a month prior and which became the first satellite to reach orbit. Laika died in orbit as a re-entry strategy could not be worked out in time for the launch.

The first mammals to orbit Earth and survive were a host of animals that the Soviet Union launched on a mission called Sputnik 5 on Aug. 19, 1960. The most famous crewmembers on this flight were two other Soviet space dogs, Belka and Strelka, but the flight also carried "a gray rabbit, 40 mice, 2 rats, and 15 flasks of fruit flies and plants," according to NASA.

In 1968, two steppe tortoises became the first animals to fly around the moon as part of the Soviet Zond 5 mission, which was the first successful mission around the moon, according to NASA. The Zond 5 tortoises survived the trip, but were dissected after their return to Earth so that scientists could compare them with grounded counterparts for any impact of spaceflight. (None of the eight tortoises involved in the experiment were allowed to eat beginning 12 days before launch, and apparently "the main structural changes in the tortoises were caused by starvation," according to NASA.)

Other famous animals in space

In the early decades of spaceflight, many animals reached space - and fame - even after the notable "firsts" were all claimed.

Gordo, a squirrel monkey, launched 600 miles high on Dec. 13, 1958. He died on splashdown when a flotation device failed.

Able, a Rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, were launched together on May 28, 1959. Able and Baker flew 300 miles high and returned unharmed. However, Able died during an operation to remove an electrode from under her skin. Baker lived until 1984, dying of kidney failure at age 27.

Ham was a chimpanzee trained to perform tasks during spaceflight. Ham, named after the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, became a celebrity after his flight on Jan. 31, 1961. Ham learned to pull levers to receive banana pellets and avoid electric shocks. He successfully became the first animal to actually interact with a space vessel rather than simply ride in it.

On Oct. 18, 1963, French scientists launched the first cat into space; Félicette survived her flight and was successfully retrieved after a parachute descent.

Two Russian dogs, Veterok and Ugolyok were launched into space on Feb. 22, 1966. They orbited for a record-breaking 22 days; humans did not surpass that record until 1974.

Living nematodes were found in the wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia three months after the spacecraft broke up while re-entering Earth's atmosphere, according to NASA.

Animals in space research

Although the early animal astronauts achieved great fame, many other animals have quietly contributed to the body of scientific knowledge about life in space. As humans have grown more accustomed to space travel, fewer animals make the front-page news.

Still, their contributions are important. Nearly all of their flights have been designed to study the effects of microgravity on the biological functions of creatures from Earth.

Some of the biological functions that have been studied are (to name just a few): brain states, behavioral performance, cardiovascular status, fluid and electrolyte balance, metabolic state, tissue development, and mating in zero gravity.

Here are some examples of specific experiments:

Nov. 9, 1970: Two bullfrogs were launched on a one-way mission to learn more about space motion sickness.

July 28, 1973: Two garden spiders named Arabella and Anita were used to study how orbiting earth would impact spiders' ability to spin webs. Arabella spun a fairly symmetric web even though the thread thickness varied - something that earthbound spiders don't experience.

July 10, 1985: Ten newts flew on the Soviet-launched Bion 7 satellite. Their front limbs were amputated in order to study regeneration in space to better understand how humans might recover from space injuries.

April 17, 1998: More than 2,000 creatures joined in 16 days of neurological testing alongside the seven-member human crew of the shuttle Columbia.

Animals on the International Space Station

Animals continue to be studied in space today, particularly on the International Space Station. Some examples of space station experiments include:

2014: A student experiment sent a colony of ants to the ISS and compared them to other colonies on Earth. The aim was to see how microgravity affects the movements of the space ants as they search for food.

2016: Twelve male mice were sent to the orbiting complex for 30 days so that researchers could look at changes in the animals' DNA.

2017: Healthy mouse babies arose from mice sperm hosted on the ISS for nearly 300 days in 2013-14, suggesting that sperm for other species could be hosted off-Earth in case of catastrophe.

2021: A SpaceX cargo capsule carried research equipment including bobtail squid to the International Space Station in June 2021. On Earth, these animals host microbes that allow the squid to glow in the dark, according to NASA, making baby squid a helpful model for studying how the microbiome endures conditions in space. The human microbiome is vital for processes like digesting food, and researchers want to understand how these partnerships are affected by spaceflight.

Additional resources and reading

Read an interview with author Stephen Walker about the role animals played in early spaceflight. A TIME photo feature highlights several of the early animals in space, and a feature in The Atlantic digs into why Soviets focused on dogs and Americans on monkeys.

Bibliography

Gray, T. "A Brief History of Animals in Space," NASA, 1998. https://history.nasa.gov/animals.html

Mains, R., et al. "A Researcher's Guide to International Space Station Rodent Research," NASA, 2015. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/np-2015-03-016-jsc_rodent-iss-mini-book-508.pdf

NASA, "Project Mercury Ballistic and Orbital Chimpanzee Flights (CHIMP)," https://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/Experiment/exper/907

NASA, "Skylab 3: Return to Skylab," July 25, 2018. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/skylab-3-return-to-skylab

NASA, "Zond 5," Feb. 25, 2019. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/zond-5/in-depth/

NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, "Bion 7," https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1985-059A

Ibid., "Cosmos 110," https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1966-015A

Uri, J. "60 Years Ago: Soviets Select Their First Cosmonauts," NASA, Feb. 25, 2020. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/60-years-ago-soviets-select-their-first-cosmonauts

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The first animals reached space in 1947, but it wasn't until 1960 that animals orbited Earth and landed safely.

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The Sad, Sad Story of Laika, the Space Dog, and Her One-Way Trip Into Orbit

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A stray Moscow pup traveled into orbit in 1957 with one meal and only a seven-day oxygen supply

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ISS (International Space Station) (Zaid)

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ISS (International Space Station) (Zaid)

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The International Space Station is a large spacecraft in orbit around Earth. It serves as a home where crews of astronauts and cosmonauts live. The space station is also a unique science laboratory. Several nations worked together to build and use the space station.

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What Is the International Space Station?

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The ISS is an orbiting laboratory where NASA learns about exploration as astronauts live and work in space.

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Future Possibilities about Space (Omar x2)

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Future Possibilities about Space (Omar x2)

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Several new things are happening above the Earth's atmosphere. Tourists can now pay private companies for a short trip to space, private industry is developing spacecraft for NASA missions, and a robotic helicopter is currently exploring Mars. NASA and private companies also have their sights set on the moon.

Resource: Georgia Tech: https://coe.gatech.edu/news/2021/11/future-space-exploration#:~:text=Several%20new%20things%20are%20happening,sights%20set%20on%20the%20moon.

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Georgia Tech points to what’s next, and how the Institute will contribute

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Solar Flares
CMEs
Space Junk