It ’s a Hellenic zero to hoagie tale : A stray cat is plucked from the street of Paris and direct to be an spaceman . This may sound like the game of a children ’s Word of God , but the story of Félicette — the first and only cat have intercourse to have survived a trip to space — istrue .
The black and white cat ’s improbable ascent to stardom set about in the early ' 60s , when France ’s Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique ( CERMA ) chose more than a twelve cats to complete a rigorous blank space training syllabus . The French had previously launched three rats into blank and manifestly decided to upgrade to heavy mammals to hit the books their bodily reaction to lightness .
The astrocats - in - breeding were subjugate to compression bedroom , little container , and a separator , all in an effort to find the feline that was the best fit for blank . Félicette ultimately show herself , and in October 1963 , she was strapped into a container inside a Véronique rocket and launched from a base in the Sahara desert . She flew about100 milesabove Earth and spent several second in zero gravity , all while scientist monitored her advancement via the electrode implanted in her brain .
Then , almost as soon as she get , the capsule come away from the rocket and she parachute safely to the ground , where she was call back by scientists . The trip-up go 15 minutes total .
Félicette ’s journey to outer distance was predate by Laika , the Russian street dog who became the first animal to revolve the Earth aboardSputnik 2 in 1957 . However , unlike Laika , who died in space , Félicette returned to Earth to live out the rest of her Day . Those years , sadly , were numbered . Scientists euthanized her a few months subsequently to study the impact of space travel on her brain .
Although Félicette ’s adventures were brusk , many people want to conserve her legacy . In the nineties , commemorativepostage stampswere issued in her memory in some former Gallic settlement . ( However , those stamps incorrectly identified her as a male bozo identify Félix . )
More recently , aKickstarter campaignwas launched last year to raise funds for the construction of a bronze statue of Félicette in Paris . about $ 55,000 was raised , and according to an update send in October 2018 , the organizers are still see for a suitable location for that statue .
" It ’s Félicette ’s donation to spacefaring inquiry that will one day reserve us to take our kat to the Martian colonies and beyond , " a video on the Kickstarter pageboy state . " For that , she deserve her true acknowledgment . "
