Miss Baker Burgess and Chris Dubbs in their 2007 book ‘Animals In Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle.’ For this, and her apparent pleasure at being handled with tender loving care, she earned the nickname TLC. With experiments imminent, the Army named their monkey "Alpha," and the Navy followed with "Bravo," names taken directly from the phonetic alphabet. Before flight, though, the names changed to the first letters of the antiquated Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. Miss Baker wore a helmet lined with rubber and chamois leather plus a jacket for launch, in addition to a respiration meter affixed to her
Animals in space rabbit to go into space. A 19 September 1959 launch, Jupiter AM-23, carried 2 frogs along with 12 mice but the rocket was destroyed during launch. On 19 August 1960 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 5 (also known as Korabl-Sputnik 2) which carried the dogs Belka and Strelka, along with a gray rabbit, 40 mice, 2 rats, and 15 flasks of fruit flies and plants. It was the first spacecraft to carry animals into orbit and return them alive. One of Strelka's pups, Pushinka, bred and born after her mission, was given as a present to Caroline Kennedy by Nikita