Space smells like steak and burning metal page 14 and other facts about smells in space Space travel can change your body forever page 16 and other facts about body changes in space Your phone could power the moon landing page 18 and other facts about early computers in space Footprints on the moon stay there forever page 20 and other facts about moon travel
Astronauts can time travel page 22 and other facts about time in space A man's ashes are buried on the moon page 24 and other facts about Eugene Shoemaker Even More Facts page 26 Glossary page 28 Further Information page 31 Index page 32
fruit flies launched into space in FACT THE FIRST ANIMALS IN 1 SPACE WERE FRUIT FLIES Two rocket in were 1947 the rocket just passed over the Kármán Line 60 miles 100 km above Earth's surface which is considered the start of space This is one small flight for flies one giant leap for flykind There's no fruit in space so what are we going to eat FACT Flying high As humans we think pretty highly of ourselves compared with other animals But despite all our cleverness the humble fruit fly beat us into space Scientists wanted to check how safe space travel was for humans so they sent up two fruit flies in a rocket to see what happened to them Luckily for the flies they came safely back down to Earth and survived to fly another day 2 A number of animals have been bred in space including jellyfish frogs and sea urchins
Why fruit flies Weightless apes You wouldn't think that humans and fruit Before humans went up into space scientists flies have a lot in common but actually we're were very concerned that we may not survive more similar than we look Our genes contain long periods of weightlessness We share about information about our bodies and what they 99 of our genetic code our DNA with do and over 60 of disease causing genes in chimpanzees so in 1961 U.S. scientists launched humans have recognizable matches in fruit flies a chimpanzee named Ham into space to see This means that looking at how fruit flies are how it would affect him He returned safe and affected by space travel can tell us quite a lot well just a little tired and thirsty This mission about what might happen to humans paved the way for the first successful human astronaut launch later that year IN 1973 A SPIDER SPUN THE FIRST EVER WEB IN SPACE Animal heroes Many other animals have been launched into space including dogs mice rats rabbits insects tortoises fish frogs jellyfish snails and spiders Sadly some of these animals did not survive and we owe them a huge amount in helping us understand how to make space travel safe for humans Scientists have continued to test how space affects animals in different ways and what long term effects space travel might have on humans Ham the chimpanzee astronaut A Russian stamp dedicated to Laika the first dog in space
