Adeli suit life form – before sending a human to space - were undertaken by both, particularly with some dogs by the Soviets and chimps by the US (dogs Laika in November 1957 and then Belka and Strelka on Russian Sputnik 5 in August 1960 and Ham the Chimp or Enos the chimp in January and November 1961, respectively, on US Mercury capsules. The Soviets were generally ahead of the US until the late 1960s (first satellite, first animal in space, first lunar flyby, first human object to reach lunar surface, first pictures of the far side of the moon, first human
Animals in space 31 August 1950, the U.S. launched a mouse into space (137 km) aboard a V-2 (the Albert V flight, which, unlike the Albert I-IV flights, did not have a monkey), but the rocket disintegrated because the parachute system failed. The U.S. launched several other mice in the 1950s. On 22 July 1951, the Soviet Union launched the R-1 IIIA-1 flight, carrying the dogs Tsygan (, "Gypsy") and Dezik () into space, but not into orbit. These two dogs were the first living higher organisms successfully recovered from a spaceflight. Both space dogs survived the flight, although one would die on