Following up on an earlier BB post about the forthcoming "Chimps in Space" movie, Allan Janus says:
I have to mention "Animal Aloft", a splendid book (disclosure: I wrote it) of photographs of critter of all sorts in air and space. It includes Ham, the heroic chimp in "First in Space", Able and Baker, Anita the Space Spider, Gilmore the lion, and my favorite, Kiddo the Airship Cat.
Link.
and BoingBoing reader Dan Bennett writes,
Your posts on the various space monkey movies made me think of the paintings of various animal astronauts made by my super-cool wife Laura.
Why did different countries send different species? Are monkeys more patriotic than dogs?
Michael Simmons says,
This "Space Today" article includes a list of the Russian dogs that went into space, including Strelka, who was the first dog to survive the trip. Khrushchev gave one of her puppies to JFK who gave it to Caroline Kennedy, which is just about the coolest state gift ever. Link.
BB reader William Grewe-Mullins, of The Fernbank Museum of Natural History, says:
I found a few more details on the Belka and Strelka story, and posted them on my useless blog a while back: Link.
Previously on BoingBoing: