Back in December 1983, three pregnant guppies became unlikely space travelers. According to a Soviet-era guppy study later archived in NASA's technical report server, these fish flew in the biosatellite Cosmos 1514 for five days as part of a mission built to test whether microgravity would affect fish reproductive processes. While Cosmos 1514 is best known for carrying the first pair of monkeys the Soviet space program sent into orbit, its three guppies produced one of the mission's most reassuring results.
Why send a pregnant fish to space?
