Felicette, The Cat Who Touched the Moon...
A real-life Parisian cat is rescued from homeless life on a Paris Street in 1963 to become the first and only feline among 14 cats to undergo training, testing and flight aboard a Veronique AGI rocket ship launched by the French Space Program into inter-stellar space. Felicette, the French Astro-cat was tested in her ability to handle high-g-forces and full acceleration and was selected as the one feline who could successfully transmit results back to Mission Command and survive space flight. In other words, she was a cat with the 'right stuff' named by scientists and crew who affectionately called her
Catnik.
This story offers whimsical illustrations to engage young children in an artfully told tale of how a small, homeless cat can achieve great things. Her successful rocket launch from the Saharan Desert of Algeria on October 16th, 1963 made Felicette the first and only cat to reach an altitude of 97 miles above the earth and to experience five minutes of space weightless-ness before parachuting back to earth. A feat no feline and few humans had yet experienced. This book shares the tale of one cat's contributions to scientific research that helped pave the way for today's understanding of space flight conditions and the impact it would have on future human astronauts. Her courage and contribution is memorialized with a statue that stands in her honor at the International Space University, Strasbourg, France. There you will find... Felicette perched on top of the world with eyes gazing upward towards the Moon.