I'd respond to your comment but, unfortunately replies are restricted, so I have to do it in post form.
The reason I didn't start on the topic of the animal deaths on the side of the USA is because the animal deaths on the side of the USA wasn't exclusively the topic, however when I say "the hundreds of other animals that died during the space race" I am also talking about the ones on the side of the USA.
Though I do believe that in my own post on it I had mentioned the rats that were sent into space (or at least I intended to). Though part of the issue with speaking about the space race casualties on the USA's side is that a *lot* of them are still classified so we don't really know how many animals ACTUALLY died, though it's important to note that the USA focused mainly on sending monkeys and rodents into space, which for many is a lot less sensitive of a topic.
There is also the struggle of finding actual dates for the animals sent up on the US's side, however, as for some of the animals, there was a set of rats named Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey that were sent up. In 1947 however, a bunch of fruit flies were sent up. And then there's Albert II, a rhesus macaque that was sent up in 1949.
If we're talking about more than just what the USSR sent up though, then we also have to talk about France, as on October 1963, France successfully launched FΓ©licette, the first cat in space.
The issue is, outside of the USSR, we don't have a lot of information on the animals sent up. For most, it's species and year, and finding exact dates, deaths, or even names sometimes, can be increasingly difficult. And what can be found and scraped together is often mixed and incoherent making it difficult to accurately give information.
You see, one of the things the United States is REALLY good at is hiding information, especially when it happens to be sensitive and/or inhumane information. If you want to though, I would LOVE for you to compile your own post about all of them and share it with me!
jbbartram-illu
origamiaround
