This book is as a detailed, but highly readable and balanced account of the history of animal space flights carried out by all nations, but principally the United States and the Soviet Union. It explores the ways in which animal high-altitude and space flight research impacted on space flight biomedicine and technology, and how the results - both successful and disappointing - allowed human beings to then undertake that same hazardous journey with far greater understanding and confidence. This complete and authoritative book will undoubtedly become the ultimate authority on animal space flights.

Since the early days of flight, animals have helped researchers learn how to survive in the sky, and their role continues as humanity voyages into outer space. In 1783, a rooster, a duck and a sheep were placed in a basket attached to the first hot-air balloon. In the age of rockets and space travel, many more animals have travelled into orbit, and most have returned safely to earth. This book tells the stories of 50 trips into space, with details about the animals and the scientists involved. The experiments, often designed by students, originate from many countries. The book offers an appealing introduction to the purposes of space exploration and the possibilities of safe space travel. It encourages young readers to engage in real science like the young people they will read about in this book.

This book examines the effects of spaceflight at cellular and organism levels. Research on the effects of gravity - or its absence - and ionizing radiation on the evolution, development, and function of living organisms is presented in layman's terms. The book describes the benefits of space biology for basic and applied research to support human space exploration and the advantages of space as a laboratory for scientific, technological, and commercial research.

The International Symposium on "The Use of Space by Animals and Men," sponsored by the Animal Behavior Society, took place at the 135th Annual Meeting of the AAAS in Dallas, Texas, on December 29-31, 1968. This book presents the text of all papers and edited discus sions, as well as the contributions made by several individuals who were unable ·to attend the Symposium. The idea of holding the Symposium evolved following my presenta tion of a paper to the Animal Behavior Society in 1965 [2] on the use of space by psychiatric patients. Members in attendance at that ses sion, chaired by G. Gottlieb, shared his interest in my compilation of human data presented in a measurable spatial context. This plea sant experience persuaded me that a discussion of space might be shared as a frame of reference which could open avenues of communica tion between behavioral scientists, the design community, and the de cision makers in our society.

Laika began her life as a stray dog on the streets of Moscow and died in 1957 aboard the Soviet satellite Sputnik II. Initially the USSR reported that Laika, the first animal to orbit the earth, had survived in space for seven days, providing valuable data that would make future manned space flight possible. People believed that Laika died a painless death as her oxygen ran out. Only in recent decades has the real story become public: Laika died after only a few hours in orbit when her capsule overheated. Laika’s Window positions Laika as a long overdue hero for leading the way to human space exploration. Kurt Caswell examines Laika’s life and death and the speculation surrounding both. Profiling the scientists behind Sputnik II, he studies the political climate driven by the Cold War and the Space Race that expedited the satellite’s development. Through this intimate portrait of Laika, we begin to understand what the dog experienced in the days and hours before the launch, what she likely experienced during her last moments, and what her flight means to history and to humanity. While a few of the other space dog flights rival Laika’s in endurance and technological advancements, Caswell argues that Laika’s flight serves as a tipping point in space exploration “beyond which the dream of exploring nearby and distant planets opened into a kind of fever from which humanity has never recovered.” Examining the depth of human empathy—what we are willing to risk and sacrifice in the name of scientific achievement and our exploration of the cosmos, and how politics and marketing can influence it—Laika’s Windowis also about our search to overcome loneliness and the role animals play in our drive to look far beyond the earth for answers.

Galileo wrote that “nature cannot produce a horse as large as twenty ordinary horses or a giant ten times taller than an ordinary man unless by miracle or by greatly altering the proportions of his limbs and especially of his bones”—a statement that wonderfully captures a long-standing scientific fascination with body size. Why are organisms the size that they are? And what determines their optimum size? This volume explores animal body size from a macroecological perspective, examining species, populations, and other large groups of animals in order to uncover the patterns and causal mechanisms of body size throughout time and across the globe. The chapters represent diverse scientific perspectives and are divided into two sections. The first includes chapters on insects, snails, birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals and discusses the body size patterns of these various organisms. The second examines some of the factors behind, and consequences of, body size patterns and includes chapters on community assembly, body mass distribution, life history, and the influence of flight on body size.

This book is as a detailed, but highly readable and balanced account of the history of animal space flights carried out by all nations, but principally the United States and the Soviet Union. It explores the ways in which animal high-altitude and space flight research impacted on space flight biomedicine and technology, and how the results - both successful and disappointing - allowed human beings to then undertake that same hazardous journey with far greater understanding and confidence. This complete and authoritative book will undoubtedly become the ultimate authority on animal space flights.