Who or what was the first living thing to be sent up into space?

il0veshanec

A fruitfly! Laika, the famous Russian dog, became, in 1957, the first animal to be sent into ORBIT. Many other animals had actually been sent into space before her, including mice, monkeys and - the first creature of all - a FRUITFLY sent up on a V2 rocket in 1946. So where's the monument to that noble insect? Eh? http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_first_living_thing_sent_in_to_space Mar 20 09, 12:50 PM

Midget40

First animal was the dog Laika. Laika was a Soviet space dog (c. 1954–November 3, 1957) who became the first living mammal to orbit the Earth and the first orbital casualty. Little was known about the impact of space flight on living things at the time Laika's mission was launched. Some scientists believed humans would be unable to survive the launch or the conditions of outer space, so engineers viewed flights by non-human animals as a necessary precursor to human missions. She was in Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957. Laika died a few hours after launch, presumably from stress and overheating, probably due to a malfunction in the thermal control system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika Mar 20 09, 12:53 PM

author

The fruitfly was not sent to orbit. http://worldrec.info/2007/10/27/list-of-animals-that-have-been-to-space-much-more-than-just-dogs Mar 20 09, 4:18 PM

zbeckabee

Just to clarify that the fruit flies actually hit outer space: Experimentation techniques improved, however, and in the following year a container of fruit flies carried to an altitude of 106 miles was successfully parachuted back to earth where the flies were recovered alive and in apparent good health. http://history.nasa.gov/afspbio/part1.htm 106 miles = 170.5905 kilometers The Kármán line lies at an altitude of 100 km (62.1 miles) above the Earth's sea level, and is commonly used to define the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line Mar 20 09, 5:37 PM