A veritable zoo around the Moon
For the Soviet Zond 5 mission, a batch of living organisms took a historic trip around the Moon and back. Launched in 1968, the payload included a pair of Steppe turtles, hundreds of fruit fly eggs, worms, plants (including air-dried cells of carrots, tomatoes, peas, wheat, and barley), seeds, bacteria, and other creatures. No living creatures had ever ventured so far into space, and the mission ended successfully with the capsule splashing down in the Indian Ocean. The tortoises were still alive but at the point of starvation, the result of a 39-day fast. A duplicate mission later in the year suffered an anomaly that resulted in the loss of cabin pressure and the demise of all biological specimens.
