NASA records state that the animals were dissected on October 11, 1968, to see how their bodies were affected by the space travel.ĭissection showed that “the main structural changes in the tortoises were caused by a lack of food and not the space travel.” The tortoises had lost about 10 percent of their body weight. They traveled back to Moscow on October 7.īoth tortoises survived the trip but not the experiment. NASA calls it “the first successful circumlunar mission carried out by any nation.”Īfter a week-long trip, the tortoises landed on Earth by parachute in the Indian Ocean. On September 14, 1968, the Soviet space program sent two tortoises - along with some flies and worms - into space for a trip around the moon. These African spurred tortoises (Centrochelys Sulcata) live at a zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, May 17, 2018. The best that could be said was that the second monkey, Albert II, survived his entire flight through space, only to die during reentry.These tortoises are not astronauts. They unfortunately also continued a trend of failure - most of the launches experienced major technical difficulties and animal fatalities. By naming the monkey Albert, the scientists started a trend, since every monkey used during the operation was called Albert, and the entire endeavor is now known as the Albert Project. Because of close quarters, Albert died of suffocation during the flight. The next year, the Aero Medical Laboratory began conducting animal experiments in White Sands, N.M., and on June 11, 1948, a V-2 Blossom rocket launched into space with Albert I, a rhesus monkey. Soon after that, space programs began sending up larger animals. The first living organisms to make it into space and back were actually much smaller than a monkey or a dog - in 1947, a container full of fruit flies successfully flew 106 miles above the Earth and parachuted back without any apparent damage. Ralph Crane/Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images
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