Cat's In Space?! - Cats in the hall of fame

Many animals have been sent in man's plight to touch the moon. It is common knowledge monkeys made safe journeys around the earths orbit and lived to tell the tale, like Able.

Able on exhibit

Able was the first monkey who successfully returned from orbit back in 1959. He lived for another 26 years before dying 26 years later due to a reaction to anesthesia, whilst undergoing surgery to remove an infected medical electrode. He is now an exhibit at the National Air and space museum, USA.

Unfortunately not all animals made it safely back. People had no idea on the effect of being in space orbit would have on biological organisms. Many animals died from suffocation, overheating or drowning at sea on impact. However to minimize stress animals would anesthetized before lift off and were only sent into space once. It was all to test whether humans could survive long periods of weightlessness, scientists had been debating for years whether it was possible. It certainly taught the rocket scientists a lot about space. I will leave you to decide whether you think it was worth saving human lives or not.

Many different animals were sent to test the different effects.

Monkeys of several species were used; The rhesus monkey, cynomolgus monkeys, squirrel monkeys, pig-tailed monkeys and even some chimpanzees.
Mice, bees, frogs, worms, turtles, stick insects and other insects.
Fruit flies were the very first animal ever sent, they made it home safe.
Rabbits and rats. lots made it home, lots of them did not.
After monkeys they tried dogs as they thought these would be calmer during space flight. Many of the dogs are unsung heroes. JFK was given a space dogs puppy, as a gift for his grandchildren.

Several cats were trained, 10 decommissioned as they ate too much!

But I know you're here to hear about if kitties were able to become space-cats. The answer is yes. Felix and Felicette are two well know cats from the space program in France.

A not so glamorous shot of astr-cat Felicette

Felix was a stray, black and white cat,taken from the streets of Paris. He went trough training but not long before the flight he was reported to have escaped.
So instead Felicette was quickly trained and sent up instead in 1963. It was a short flight lasting 15 minutes but she travelled 100 miles into space which is when she was released in a capsule with a a parachute.
The flight was a success and she was recovered in good health. what became of her is unsure but British papers called her "astro-cat" and stamps were released all over the world but because of felix's last minute ditch they all had his name and face on them.

"Felicette on recovery"

I tip my hat to Felicette the female feline who risked her life in the name of science, robbed of the face of stamps and nearly forgotten.

stamps showing Felix instead of Felicette

Since then other cats have attempted space one weightless experiment was uploaded to youtube. i think the experiment is to see if the cats would know they are floating or to see if they would still try to flip over.

some other videos i found, some more questionable than others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_in_space
http://history.nasa.gov/animals.html
http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/felix.html

The history of Garfield, know your cat!

So where and how did this great phenomena of Garfield, the greedy charming cat, come from?

Garfield: So much time, and so little... I need to do.

Originally the writer of Garfield, Jim Davis, was the creator of a comic strip called 'Gnorm Gnat'. This was back in the 1970's and although he was able to get his strips out there, they weren't being received as hoped: One editor said "his art is good, and gags are great, but nobody can identify with bugs!" After this he decided to scrap it and came up with a new comic strip starring a cat..Garfield.



Even still Garfield took time to make perfect, at first the main character is Garfield's owner, John. But this soon changed when newspapers said they thought the cat should be the main character as he gets the funniest lines.

 Eventually the newspaper 'The United Feature Syndicate'  decided to feature it in 41 newspapers in 1978. After a test run the Chicago times removed the strip from their paper, but then had to reinstate it after receiving complaints from the readers. It was then clear the brilliance of Garfield and how lovable he is.







Garfield: Once again, my life has been saved by the miracle of lasagna. 

Garfield Has gone a long way from comics and now is a well established movie star, with a fair few movies under his belt:

Garfield the moovie 2004

garfield: A tale of two kitties 2006

Garfield gets real 2007 this where they started to really bring cgi into action.

Garfields Fun Fest 2008

Garfields Pet Force "009

Although i enjoyed all of his movies i am a little disappointed how "Disney" they became. Super family friendly with lots of morals, it slowly turns into cheesy Rom-coms. I say they should make a Garfield with his old attitude and possible make it a rated movie for punch.

Liz: There's nothing wrong with Garfield. He's just a happy, fat, lazy cat. 
Garfield: No need for a second opinion. 




Sources :www.wikipedia.co.uk for all images.