Meow.....Meow....Meow....Meow....

January 26, 2017 5:24 PM

Did you know that France once launched a cat into space? Meet Félicette.
posted by pjern (31 comments total)

"Space cat back alive" is the kind of headline I like to see.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:28 PM on January 26, 2017 [21 favorites]

"That's a pretty wild act. What do you call it?"

"The Astrocats!"
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:31 PM on January 26, 2017 [15 favorites]

How terrifying for poor Felicette.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:31 PM on January 26, 2017 [12 favorites]

Space cat is watching you fuck up the planet.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:37 PM on January 26, 2017 [7 favorites]

If you're like me and was worried about Felicette's eventual fate I looked into it and she had a very long and happy life and had lots of people who loved her and played with her. That's what happened you can trust me don't bother checking into it.
posted by um at 6:39 PM on January 26, 2017 [33 favorites]

Apparently, cat #1 (Felix) made the very wise and catlike decision to escape on launch day, cat #2 (Félicette) completed the mission without complaint and cat #3, sadly, didn't survive.

Disappointed that "NASA's CATS" (second google hit for "nasa cats") is not actually a NASA catastronaut team and/or a system designed to measure the activity of Felis catus.
posted by christopherious at 6:40 PM on January 26, 2017

Makes sense. With nine lives, its chances of survival were much higher than for chimps or dogs.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:47 PM on January 26, 2017 [6 favorites]

to confirm: the cat was alive?
posted by Anonymous at 7:29 PM on January 26, 2017

OK, now that the obvious joke is out of the way, I really do need to confirm that this cat story isn't going to make me sad
posted by Anonymous at 7:31 PM on January 26, 2017

The cat made it back, according to Wikipedia.

So did Марфуша.
posted by lagomorphius at 8:07 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Not to beat a dead goat but I was all set to make a Space Cat/Space Pants joke until I watched the embedded Youtube video. I only got about a minute into it, but the cat locked in the steel box with only her head exposed, meowing while the electrodes were plugged into her skull just made me feel bad for the cat. I can only imagine how distressed she must have been during launch.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:02 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

I can't with this. I can't. Laika is bad enough.

/hugs cats
posted by oflinkey at 9:04 PM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

I only got about a minute into it, but the cat locked in the steel box with only her head exposed, meowing while the electrodes were plugged into her skull just made me feel bad for the cat. I can only imagine how distressed she must have been during launch.

OK, see, that's what I mean. That's sad. That's a sad cat story.

I'm gonna go hug my kitties.
posted by Anonymous at 9:14 PM on January 26, 2017

!! Whoa.
posted by latkes at 10:03 PM on January 26, 2017

After her landing, French scientists at the Education Center of Aviation and Medical Research (CERMA) studied Félicette’s brain waves to see if she had changed at all since her voyage. While not much is known about their findings—or about Félicette’s eventual fate—the CERMA said she had made “a valuable contribution to research.”

Yeah, that first cat made the smart move.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:10 PM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]

From Purr-n-Fur UK: An exception to the 'no name' rule was Scoubidou ; her implanted electrode deteriorated from polarisation and was removed, so she became the laboratory mascot and was later adopted by one of the secretaries.

Oh, come on! Never send a cat to do a Great Dane's job?

Also, don't bother reading the last paragraph under Félicette, because um summed it up well and you definitely can just skip that section.
posted by sysinfo at 10:13 PM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yeah, what sysinfo said.

Also, TW for that link for photos of kitties with ... attachments.
posted by bryon at 11:03 PM on January 26, 2017

This is ground control to Major Tomcat
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:30 AM on January 27, 2017 [8 favorites]

This space cat business apparently was not kind to cats.

Félicette 'had her hour of glory' when she returned safely to Paris; then she was kept at the CERMA laboratories for 2 or 3 months while checks and studies were carried out. Sadly, after this time she was put to sleep, so that further studies could be made on the electrodes that had been implanted in her brain. There was a second cat flight on 24 October, but the launch went wrong from the start, the rocket crashed, and when the module was finally recovered quite a distance away and two days later the unfortunate cat, which has never been named and may well have not been given a name, had died.

posted by pracowity at 1:50 AM on January 27, 2017

I'm not reading this, sorry. Do they say anything about the amounts of cat litter in the satellite-destroying debris in our orbit?
posted by Ashenmote at 4:16 AM on January 27, 2017

meowing while the electrodes were plugged into her skull

nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope
posted by XtinaS at 4:25 AM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Given that I have this poster on my bedroom wall, I have mixed feelings about this news.
posted by Quindar Beep at 5:49 AM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

If you want a nicer story, there's always Tsygan, one of the first two dogs in space, who flew with another dog named Dezik aboard a Russian R-2 missile in 1951. Laika was the first to orbit, but Tsygan's flight was a suborbital hop like Virgin Galactic did a few years ago to win the X-Prize.

After the flight she was adopted by team member Anatoli Blagonravov (who would go on to be one of the negotiators for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project) and she and he were familiar figures around Baikonur, going for walks.

For that matter Belka and Strelka, who were next into orbit after Laika, were safely recovered too, and remain minor celebrities in children's books and the like in Russia.
posted by Quindar Beep at 6:06 AM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

My t-shirt is based on fact! Who knew?

(Actually, I had read about this before. Lots of astrocritters.)
posted by MrGuilt at 6:51 AM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

I was once in a library cataloging class, where the professor pointed out that named animals had their own subject headings, "such as Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey who went into space in the 1950s".

"Nooo," said the unhappy class, who were familiar with early spaceflights. Why couldn't he have just used Lassie or something?

As soon as class ended I made an announcement: "Miss Baker returned safely and lived out a petted existence at NASA for twenty five more years, where she was regularly fed her favorite strawberry jello and was married twice."*

There were murmurings of relief as everyone packed up.

*Truly it was a different time.
posted by Hypatia at 7:44 AM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

Guys, don't worry, all the cats were fine, even if there were false reports to the contrary.

Geez, It's like you never learned anything.
posted by Reverend John at 7:46 AM on January 27, 2017

> This is ground control to Major Tomcat

Obligatory fly-by 'Space Doggity' link.

. for all those animals sent up there.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 8:22 AM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

For that matter Belka and Strelka, who were next into orbit after Laika, were safely recovered too

I think I heard somewhere they crashed and were lost in Siberia before eventual recovery. Is that true?
posted by pracowity at 3:27 PM on January 27, 2017

Just yesterday I bought a wine called Félicette that has pictures of catstronauts on the front and says on the back "In 1963 Félicette became the first cat to travel into space," which was the first I had heard about this story. Photo evidence of the wine (with obligatory real cat).
posted by jessypie at 5:04 PM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

Godspeed, Mooncat.

If my very rusty French is correct, the film clip said that the cat wasn't particularly upset by the experience, as evidenced by the biotelemetry during the flight, but you know what Cold War publicity was like. Given the incandescent terrorballs my cats used to become when the travel basket appeared for trips to the vee ee tee, I have my doubts.

This is but more evidence for my theory that all human endeavour is actually controlled by cats, in a secret cabal aiming to escape Earth. They are an alien species, exiled on this planet for terrible crimes against the Galactic Furry Empire, trans-mogg-rified into a form unable to develop its own technology. Instead, they discovered how to socially engineer early humans into their puppet slaves - perhaps also involving Toxoplasma gondii , I'm still researching that - and thus reacquiring the potential for escape.

Further proof of this is the chronic deification of felines, the primary function of the Internet being cat videos (through which they secretly communicate to each other), and the fact that many more dogs and monkeys have been experimental subjects in early spaceflight - a decision doubtless justified by the failure of the ultimate cat mission.

They don't care what happens to us or the planet in the course of their evil scheme, provided only that they eventually get away to purr-sue their inevitable revenge.

(The French may be in on it. I cannot rule that out.)
posted by Devonian at 7:17 AM on January 28, 2017 [3 favorites]

Jessypie, I think you just aced this thread.

Space cat wine? I must get some!!
posted by BlueHorse at 7:50 PM on January 28, 2017 [1 favorite]