Posted on 01/27/2017 1:23:07 PM PST by BenLurkin
On October 18th, 1963, the Centre national d’études in France was set to send a small cat named Félix into space. After lagging behind its Soviet and American competitors, France was eager to stake its claim in the space race—with cats, for some reason. But on launch day, the mischievous little beast went missing—and an accidental heroine stepped in to take his place. Her name was Félicette.
From the streets of Paris, this tuxedo kitty—nicknamed “Astrocat”—would reach heights never achieved by feline kind. On October 24th, 1963, Félicette jetted 130 miles above Earth on a liquid-fueled French Véronique AG1 rocket, soaring high above the Algerian Sahara Desert. She returned just fifteen minutes later, already a decorated heroine for her nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
Won’t it be great when people start bringing their sham “comfort” animals on spaceflights?
Maybe I can get a patent on my zero gravity cat litter.
“It clumps!”, and it can be reprocessed into many tasty
halal food stuffs.
Stays crunchy even in milk!................
No, those are NOT raisins!
Or bite sized Tootsie Rolls...
Honey, it’s your turn, the cat is stuck in the
cat litter again.
I think Able went down with a capsule, while it was never intended to be retrieved, the USN did make a decent unofficial effort at trying to locate and save the monkey.
The Soviet dog Laika was never intended to come back to Earth. Its last scheduled meal was poisoned, but it died of hyperthermia due to the capsule's sun screen either being lost/damaged during the launch, or failed to deploy in orbit. In any case, the dog survived a few hours at best, rather than days.
There is another animal whose contributions to space exploration have been practically ignored.
The Sea Monkey.
There have been more Sea Monkeys shot into space than all other types of animals combined.
Brave little Sea Monkeys have circled our planet and even travelled to the moon!
The Sea Monkey program was disbanded after a horrible accident.
A human Astronaut thought that the bowl of Sea Monkeys was chicken soup and ate the entire crew.
When you go out tonight to look at the stars, just remember this.....
Sea Monkeys have been up there!
And they beat the crap out of the Borg.
“...And, while with mewling, lifting mind I’z trod
The high untrespassed sanc-kitty of space,
Put out my paw, andz scratched the sh!t out of the face of God.”
What a quick witted, fast written parody!
Great poster!
Ping
Heh!
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