Baker, however, went on to live until 1984, and is now buried at the United States Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The squirrel monkey Miss Baker. NASA/Marshall Space Flight CenterĪble sadly died just four days later due to a bad reaction to anesthesia when scientists tried to remove an infected medical electrode. They were in the nose cone of the missile, and spent nine minutes in space before both returning to Earth alive. On May 28, 1959, a Jupiter IRBM missile was used to launch another rhesus monkey named Able into suborbit, along with a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker. He was anesthetized for the flight, though, and died on impact after re-entering the atmosphere. The first primate to go to space was the rhesus macaque Albert II on June 14, 1949, who flew on top of a V2 rocket.

While the Soviets were sending dogs to space, the US sent monkeys. Pushinka had four puppies with one of Kennedy’s dogs, which the President jokingly called pupniks. Strelka later went on to have puppies with a male dog, and one – named Pushinka – was given to President Kennedy in 1961 by Nikita Khrushchev.

All of these animals safely returned to Earth, becoming the first to orbit the planet and return alive.

Where are the dead animals in space?