![]() The campaign gathered over 1,100 patrons who contributed $57,000 to honor Félicette with a five-foot-tall bronze statue designed by acclaimed sculptor Gill Parker. However, Félicette’s memory was rescued from obscurity thanks to the efforts of space enthusiast and all-round cat person Matthew Serge Guy, who launched a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2017 to build a memorial in honor of the space cat. But it’s not at all clear if Félicette’s autopsy rendered any useful intel and France never launched astronauts on its own rockets, though it produced ten astronauts that went to space as part of the European Space Agency (ESA), founded in 1973 with France as its first contributor. These were still the early days of space flight and scientists hoped to gather as much information as they could so as to make manned flights safer. The motivation for such a tragic task was seemingly noble. Only two months after she came back from space, Félicette was euthanized so that researchers could examine her brain and study how space travel affected her body. Yet despite people being proud and fond of her, Félicette’s story didn’t have a happy ending. But the name C 341 - a code system that was chosen on purpose so the French scientists wouldn’t become attached to them - wasn’t fitting for a hero, so the French media quickly named her Félix, after the cartoon character, which was quickly changed to the feminine Félicette. The mission was a resounding success and all of France cheered for the cat, now a national treasure. Like human astronauts, the cats also underwent dizzying multi-G-force spinning by a centrifuge to test the cats’ resilience at lift-off and re-entry. For months, the catstronaut candidates endured months of grueling training, including confinement in small containers and withstanding hours in a restraint cloth. The feline hero was plucked from the streets of Paris by the Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique (CERMA), along with 13 other stray cats, all female since they were thought to have a calmer demeanor that would be better suited to the claustrophobic confines of a spaceship. The story of the only space kitty in history Although late to the party, the French space agency made its first serious incursion into manned space flight on Octothe day a French cat named Félicette became the first and only feline to ever travel to space. By this time, it was already two years since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. After significantly lagging behind its Soviet and American rivals, France was eager to prove itself as a space peer to the world’s then-two superpowers. It was the year 1963 and the space race was in full swing. Weird Little World’s monster anthology, HUMANS ARE THE PROBLEM, is inching very close to release! My bio is posted up there with the other authors (exciting!).Félicette, a former stray who went on to become the first cat in space. Anchor authors include:Ĭool, right? Also, if they fully fund, they’ll be taking submissions, too – and not just for this anthology, but for this on, NOIR, and SHATTERING THE GLASS SLIPPER, too! It all sounds super cool and you all should check it out! Butler & Joshua Palmatier, BRAVE NEW WORLDS will contain approximately fourteen stories with an average length of 6,000 words each. Will they be confronted by the ethical issue of an entirely new ecosystem, or the pure engineering challenges of terraforming a previously lifeless planet? Join us in BRAVE NEW WORLDS as we explore humanity’s race for the stars!Įdited by S.C. BRAVE NEW WORLDS will feature fourteen stellar stories set anywhere along our prospective settlers’ uncertain paths-from the heart-wrenching departure from Earth, through the unknown dangers of the long flight through the cold vastness of space, to the immigrants’ final arrival on an alien world. Their hope? To discover verdant new planets where they can build new societies or escape past persecutions. Humans have dreamed of traveling to the stars for generations. ![]() Here’s a teaser for the anthology I’ll be in, titled BRAVE NEW WORLDS:
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