Grissom edward white and roger chaffee died during a routineground test of the apollo capsule later named apollo 1. 27 1967 three of the first group of nasa astronauts virgil gus. Brazilian army colonel manuel dos santos lage planned to launch a cat named flamengo aboard the félix i rocket on 1 january 1959 but the flight was cancelled over ethical concerns regarding the use of a cat.
On 3 november 1957 the soviet union launched laika a stray dog found on the streets of moscow into space on sputnik 2 she died in space but was the first animal to orbit the earth. Smart news keeping you current félicette the first cat in space finally gets a memorial last month a team unveiled a bronze statue honoring the feline who launched on a suborbital mission in 1963. Ap photo alexander zemlianichenko file.
Russia s space agency roscosmos announced valentina gagarina s death tuesday march 17 2020 in a short statement offering condolences to her relatives. The widow of yuri gagarin the first human to fly to space has died at the age of 84. She flew to space aboard vostok 6 on june 16 1963.
The honor of being the first woman to achieve orbit belongs to the russian valentina tereshkova. The early space programs were heavily male oriented and women were prevented from flying to space aboard u s. The mannequin jokingly called ivan ivanovich and a dog called zvezdochka performed their first space flight on 21 march 1961 paving the way for the triumph of yuri gagarin s historic mission.
The first space station to park itself above earth s atmosphere was the. The soyuz 11 disaster. Then on june 30 1971 humankind witnessed the first and so far only deaths to occur in space.
Sadly for everyone who hates movies where the dog dies i e everyone the first death of an earth based life form in space was actually laika the russian canine cosmonaut. On april 12 1961 55 years ago today russian cosmonaut yuri gagarin launched into the great beyond becoming the first human in space when he came back to earth gagarin was looked upon as not. He suffered third degree burns over most of his body and face and died in a hospital 16 hours later.
During a 15 day endurance experiment in a low pressure altitude chamber with at least 50 oxygen atmosphere vostok cosmonaut trainee bondarenko dropped an alcohol soaked cloth onto an electric hotplate.
