To check that it would be safe to send humans at a later stage.
to check if animals can survive there
It was because space at the time was an unknown as were the effects on life. Animals were used rather than risk the lives of people.
Alan Shepard
Man first sent an onject into space in 1957. This object was the Soviet Union's satellite Sputnik 1.
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Alan Shepard Jr.
The USSR (Russia) was.
The former USSR was.
The second country to send a man into space was the Soviet Union, on April 12, 1961. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space and orbit the Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft.
The Sovjet Union was the first state to send a man-made satellite into space. It was launched on the 4th of October, 1957 and called Sputnik-1.
because the moon is the earth's nearest neighbor
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