Space attracts us - this statement is indisputable. The general facts about the attempts of mankind to conquer its boundless spaces are known to one degree or another by everyone. One of the most striking examples is Squirrel and Strelka - the famous astronaut dogs, who were the first to return from the difficult and dangerous extraterrestrial journey alive and unharmed. But these are far from the only animals that have traveled into space. Ask any of your friends: "Which animals were the first to fly around the moon?" A person who can give the right answer to this question will have to be carefully searched.
Little assistants to scientists
The first living organisms in space were just Drosophila flies sent by the Americans in 1947 to study the effect of radiation at high altitude. They returned safe and sound, in their specially equipped capsule landing with a parachute.
Their mission was continued by monkeys Albert-1 and Albert-2 (USA), as well as about a dozen dogs (USSR). Also on the list of fluffy astronauts is one single cat, Felicette. She was sent into orbit in France in 1963. All animals, unfortunately, died during the flight.
And only after 12 years of attempts and experiments, Soviet scientists managed to return the fluffy astronauts back in full safety. Squirrel and Strelka successfully circled around the Earth.
New achievements
The conquests continued, and the most important task of scientists was to study the satellite of our planet. Just as when launching aircraft in low Earth orbit, animals were the first to set off. Flying around the moon, they became pioneers of a new space direction and as close as possible to the satellite a few months before the landing of American astronauts on it.
Which animals were the first to fly around the moon
If we take into account only vertebrates, then the turtles were the first to reach the earthly satellite. It is worth noting that they were representatives of a rare Central Asian species. The flight was completed in September 1968 on the Soviet unmanned aerial vehicle Zond-5.
Do not be surprised at which animals were the first to fly around the moon. The choice of turtles for this role was by no means random. They stopped precisely because they needed quite a bit of oxygen to maintain life. In addition, the turtles practically did not need nutrients, since they spent most of the flight in a lethargic dream.
Turtles were not the only passengers of the drone. During the flight, there were also already experienced "astronauts" in it: Drosophila flies, some bacteria and plants.
Dangerous Travel Details
It is interesting to learn not only about which animals were the first to fly around the moon, but also about how they did it. The flight itself went without complications. The aircraft left the surface of the Earth on September 15. The trajectory was first corrected at a distance of 325 thousand km from the point of departure. Three days later (September 18), the ship circled the moon at a distance of 1960 km from its surface. And on September 21, the device, weighing a little more than two tons, entered the earth's atmosphere at the second space speed.
"Probe 5" landed successfully in the Indian Ocean. They opened it in the laboratory of TsKBEM in Moscow, and from there it was handed over to scientists for further study. During the space travel, turtles lost an insignificant part of their weight, about 10%. As a result of large overloads, one of them lost her eye. But in general, the flight did not have a drastically negative effect on the health of passengers.
Unfortunately, the names of the astronaut turtles remained unknown. Maybe that's why few people know which animals circled around the moon first.