November 03

On November 3, 1957, the Soviet Union astonished the world by launching Sputnik 2. Laika, the first animal to orbit Earth, was aboard the tiny satellite. Laika, however, was not the first mammal in space. Since 1947, the United States and the Soviet Union have been placing animals atop rockets. No one understood what the repercussions of weightlessness would be in the early days of rocket technology. Animals, mostly dogs, monkeys, and chimps, were used to assess the safety and practicality of launching a live being into space and returning it intact.
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