My tiny animal-loving human brain decided that if Grace could meet Simon from that sad future timeline, then all the animals in space could totally time-travel too and magically get a happy ending with Grace, Simon, Rocky, and everyone else on Erid. So since yesterday I’ve been deep-diving into research and I’m starting to write a story where that actually happens 🫡
After doing more research, I realized how little people actually talk about animals in space. I think most of you know who Laika is, but not many people know about Pchelka and Mushka (Bee and Fly), or the fact that their spacecraft didn’t just carry animals but plants too! Which is honestly super interesting and opens up a lot of possibilities for resources on Erid.
Citing Russian sources (including what’s written on Wikipedia), this is what we get:
On board there were not only animals, but also fruit fly cultures (Drosophila), seeds of pea, wheat, corn, buckwheat and broad bean, as well as ampoules with human tissue cultures (from Henrietta Lacks), other biological materials, and scientific and telemetry equipment for data transmission. The biological payload included dogs Mushka and Pchelka, two guinea pigs, two white laboratory rats, 14 black C57 mice, seven hybrid CBA/C57 mice, and five white outbred mice.
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The seeds could expand their diet and be used to selectively breed or genetically adapt crops to better environmental conditions, potentially producing entirely new, highly resilient plant varieties. Animal tissue samples could be processed in advanced lab systems to grow cultured meat, providing a sustainable and efficient food source.
And just look at these adorable dogs I mentioned earlier!
