“Made by Homeschoolers for Homeschoolers!” Special Offer for THEE Homeschoolers
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Hey everyone, Daniel Allers here with History Alive. Well, we are super excited to be partnering with THEE to get you guys special discount pricing for our program. Now if you’ve never heard of History Alive before, or Science Alive, which is one of our units, you might be wondering what on earth we are. We are taking Canada by storm, and it’s made by homeschoolers for homeschoolers. It is a video-based program, working through throughout the years, the entire world of history and geography and science in an amazing, interactive program your kids will love. Every month we tackle a new topic, and every month we break it down into about 20 five-minute video segments and a few extra special features. Well, I find a video is worth about a million words, so enjoy as we show for you and your kids—if you want to watch them—one of our segments we did a few months back for when we were talking about space and space flight about the animals that we first sent to space.
A Sneak Peek: Space Animals
Okay, let’s talk about something a little bit crazy. You see, before people went to space, we had to figure out if it was safe. And how do you think that they figured it out? Animals, that’s right, space animals! No, I don’t mean aliens, I mean poor, unlucky animals that got chosen for space flight. Well, this is just a brief little history of that, and some of it’s a little bit sad. But who was the first creature to go to space? Well, I’ll answer that, but first we have to actually back up a bit further. You see, we’ve been using animals for testing flight for a long time. In fact, when they built the first hot air balloon, they weren’t sure if people would be able to survive going up into the sky. So what did they do? They put a sheep, a duck, and a rooster on it. That’s right, a sheep, a duck, and a rooster. Put them on a hot air balloon and [Music] let it go up into the sky. What happened? Well, they flew for about two miles, it came back down to Earth, and they survived. Big old check mark there. Okay, so the sheep, the duck, and the rooster, they survived.
Now we get to the first creature to go to space. Now, space is a bit of a moving target. Nobody really agrees at exactly where space starts and where the air, the atmosphere, stops. But people agree that the first animal to go to space was a… no, it wasn’t a dog, it wasn’t a monkey either, it was fruit flies. What? Who would shoot fruit flies into space? The Nazis. That’s right, the bad guys from World War II. They pretty much invented rockets, and one of their rockets they experimented with actually made it to the edge of space, and they put some fruit flies in it, and then it came back down to Earth and landed and guess what? The fruit flies lived! There we go, some Nazi fruit flies survive the first ever snake, space flight. That’s pretty exciting, I guess.
What came next? Well, they weren’t ready for dogs yet. Next was some mice. The first creature to ever be shot into space that was more than a bug was a mouse, and of course that was by Russia. They shot this thing into space and it went and died. Sadly, this is a pretty common theme. Most of the creatures that they shot into space either were just left out there or they died as a result of it. Lots of mice have been shot into space, but the first ever dog to go to space was a Russian dog named Laika (L-A-I-K-A). And Laika looks like that. Normally the Soviets would use, the Soviets being Russia back then, they would use stray dogs because stray dogs were considered to be able to withstand the cold, and of course space is pretty chilly. Laika made it into space and died after a few hours. There was never a plan for them to bring her back, which is kind of sad. And then, well, we moved on. All in all, 12 dogs have gone to space and 32 monkeys. That’s right, monkeys of course, being that they’re primates, which are, you know, kind of like people. Well guess what? They were the test astronauts to see whether or not your body, or other astronauts, would be able to survive the rigors of space flight.
Who was the first monkey to go up to space and live? His name was Able, and the second was named Baker. Able and Baker, they were American monkeys, or I guess probably not American monkeys, but they were sent by the United States and they made it up in 1959 and guess what? They lived. In fact, apparently they kind of enjoyed it, which is kind of great. Who holds the record, who of any animal has spent the most time in space? Well, of big animals, there’s a pair of Russian dogs that spent 22 days in space, which is pretty impressive. That record still stands. But the craziest thing is that on one of Russia’s tests, they send a lot of critters into space at the same time. They spent two dogs, a rabbit, 42 mice, two rats, and a bunch of fruit flies. Same flight. Nowadays, lots of animals have gone to space, including spiders and jellyfish. Don’t ask me why, but scientists wanted him up there for some reason.
Join the Fun
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Well, as you can see, this program is quirky, this program is fun, and this program is full of great humor that your kids will love. If you would like to check it out, follow this link, which is historyliveonline.com/thee, and you’ll get access to special pricing. We’d love to have you join us. If you know friends who’d like to join us too, absolutely spread the word, and we’ll see you online.
