SPACE — On December 19, 1961, the French space agency was born! More than a decade earlier, the country’s Defense Department was keen on experimenting with rockets and missiles.
President Charles de Gaulle finally decided France needed official government space research. He signed the creation of the Center National d’Etudes Spatiales, which means, National Center for Space Studies.
De Gaulle established the agency to coordinate French space activities such as rocket launches and astronaut training. Ultimately, France launched the first and only cat to go into space.
Usually, other countries such as the US and the Soviet Union at that time did it with other animals. Dogs and monkeys are the most frequent choices. Source: Space.com
2023-12-19 13:11:00
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