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
Soviet space dogs Soviet space dogs During the 1950s and 1960s the USSR used dogs for sub-orbital and orbital space flights to determine whether human spaceflight was feasible. In this period, the Soviet Union or the USSR launched missions with passenger slots for at least 57 dogs. The number of dogs in space is smaller, as some dogs flew more than once. Most survived; the few that died were lost mostly through technical failures, according to the parameters of the test. A notable exception is Laika, the first dog to be sent into orbit, whose death was expected from the outset. Dogs were