Explorers give us knowledge about the world around us.
Many well-known explorers went to outer space in spaceships
Yuri Gagarin was the first man to travel to outer space in 1961.
outer space
Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space in 1963
Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon and became a hero in the United States
But did you know that animals were the first explorers in outer space?
The U.S. made the first attempt to send an animal into space
The U.S. sent flies to space in 1947, and many monkeys followed in 1949 and the 1950s. Sadly, many of these attempts failed
The Soviet Union sent two dogs into space in 1951. Both dogs lived
Some people think that perhaps the spaceflight succeeded because the dogs were together and did teamwork
Another successful animal in space was Ham the chimpanzee. Ham did not drive the spaceship, but he did do work on it