The first animal in space was launched in 1947. And, perhaps surprisingly, it was the humble fruit fly.
Fruit flies
Incredibly, 32 monkeys and apes have been to space, including the rhesus macaque, pig-tailed monkey, cynomolgus monkey, squirrel-tailed monkey and chimpanzee.
Monkeys and apes
These rodents have long been used to find out more about how space travel will affect the human body. In fact, NASA has recently published a detailed study of mice housed at the International Space Station.
Mice
A number of dogs have gone into space under the former Soviet Union. The most well-known was Laika in 1957.
Dogs
Tortoises played an important role in the Space Race, In 1968, the race was on between the USA and the Soviet Union to land a man on the moon. The Russians launched the Zond 5 spaceship with a capsule carrying samples of soil and seeds, some worms and two steppe tortoises.
Tortoises
These amphibians have been helping make one great leap for mankind since 1959. However, the most significant frog flight came in 1970 when NASA launched the Orbiting Frog Olotith spacecraft (pictured), containing two bullfrogs.
Frogs
After the success of the first manned mission to the moon in 1969, there was less emphasis on putting animals into space. However, scientists were still interested in studying the effects of microgravity on the biological functions of animals.
Spiders
The first aquanauts to reach space were a type of minnow found in salt marshes – the mummichog – plus 50 eggs. It was 1973 and NASA was keen to observe the effects of microgravity on animals that moved three dimensionally on Earth.
Fish
In 2007, tardigrades were the first animals to survive outer space. Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are microscopic invertebrates able to deal with almost anything on Earth, so perhaps it’s no surprise.
Tardigrades
Nematodes (also called roundworms) are often used to study the impact of space travel on organisms.