Animals in space

Animals in space originally served to test the survivability of spaceflight, before human spaceflights were attempted. Later, other non-human animals were flown to investigate various biological processes and the effects microgravity and space flight might have on them. Bioastronautics is an area of bioengineering research that spans the study and support of life in space. To date, seven national space programs have flown animals into space: the United States, Soviet Union, France, Argentina, China, Japan and Iran. A wide variety of animals have been launched into space, including monkeys and apes, dogs, cats, tortoises, mice, rats, rabbits, fish, frogs, spiders, quail eggs (which hatched in 1990 on Mir), and insects. The US launched the first Earthlings into space - fruit flies in 1947 - and flights carrying primates primarily between 1949 and 1961, with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985. France launched two monkey-carrying flights in 1967. The Soviet Union and Russia launched monkeys between 1983 and 1996. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet space program used a number of dogs for sub-orbital and orbital space flights. Two tortoises and several varieties of plants were the first inhabitants of Earth to circle the Moon, on the September 1968 Zond 5 mission. Turtles followed on the November 1968 Zond 6 circumlunar mission, and four turtles flew to the Moon on Zond 7 in August 1969. In 1972 five mice, Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey, orbited the Moon a record 75 times in Apollo 17's Command Module America, the last crewed voyage to the Moon. Animals had been used in aeronautic exploration since 1783 when the Montgolfier brothers sent a sheep, a duck, and a rooster aloft in a hot air balloon to see if ground-dwelling animals can survive (the duck serving as the experimental control). The limited supply of captured German V-2 rockets led to the U.S. use of high-altitude balloon launches carrying fruit flies, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, frogs, goldfish and monkeys to heights of up to .