Russian Space Dogs

Laika was the first dog or animal to go into orbit aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957. She died from stress and overheating around 5 to 7 hours into the flight. However this was not officially accepted until October 2002, previously officials claimed she had died from a lack of oxygen.

Belka and Strelka made the first succesfull orbital flight in Sputnik 5 on August 19, 1960. As well as the two dogs, a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plants and fungi also went on the flight. The scientist were intrested to see wther zero gravity affected reporductivity, Strelka had six puppies with a male dog named Pushok who participated in many ground-based space experiments.

Pchelka and Mushka spent a day in orbit on December 1, 1960 on Sputnik 6. However due to a navigation error, their spacecraft disintegrated during re-entry on December 2. Chernushka went on one orbit in Sputnik 9 on March 9, 1961 with a cosmonaut dummy. The dummy was included to show how a human would experience space. The dummy was ejected and then recovered succesfully. Zvezdochka, named by  Yuri Gagarin made one orbit onboard Sputnik 10 on March 25, 1961. Again the dummy was ejected and then succesfully recovered.

The final dogs to be put into space spent 22 days in orbit , a record that hasnt been beaten since. The dogs were Veterok and Ugolyok. They went in Cosmos 10 on February 22, 1966. they returned to earth on March 16. A space flight of this length was not completed by humans until June 1973 in Skylab 2.

The first Human in space was Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin on April 12, 1961. He spent 1 hour, 48 minutes in space.