On Oct. 18, 1963, a cat went to space! Félicette was a French "catstronaut" who became the first and only feline to fly to space.
While the U.S. and Soviet Union were busy launching primates, dogs and humans, the French decided to join the space race by launching a cat. Félicette, a stray tuxedo cat from the streets of Paris, was a substitute for another cat named Felix, who somehow escaped on launch day.
So Félicette went where no cat had ever gone before. She boarded a French Véronique AG1 rocket and soared 130 miles above the Earth before safely parachuting back down.
Luckily Félicette made it home alive and well, unlike many of the other animal astronauts that flew during the space race.
Why it mattered
Félicette survived spaceflight, but was short of this world. She was euthanized two months after her recovery so scientists could study her brain.
A second cat was launched by the French on Oct. 24, but its flight did not go so well, veering off course. When the cat was found a day later, it was discovered it have died as a result of the journey. From there on, CERMA (Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique) changed its research to flying monkeys.
Félicette may have become a footnote to history had it not been for a crowdfunded effort to raise a statue in her memory nearly 60 years later. The sculpture was unveiled in 2019 at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. European astronauts Helen Sharman, Paolo Nespoli and Reinhold Ewald were on hand for its reveal.
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To this day, Félicette and her less-fortunate astro-cat classmate remain the only felines to fly on a rocket.
In 2013, reports surfaced that Iran was planning to send a cat into space as soon as the following year. By all accounts, though, that never happened.
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