This is Scientific American 60 Second Science.

I'm Yasmin Saplacolu.

Animal astronauts have included monkeys, dogs, mice, and even fruit flies.

Most are fondly remembered, except maybe the flies.

Lika, the dog, has a monument in her honor in Moscow. Ham the chimpanzee is buried with a proper plaque at the International Space

Hall of Fame in New Mexico.

So where's the love for Phyllisette? That's what Matthew Serge Guy wants to know.

He's a creative director at the marketing agency Anomally London

and he's heading an effort to fund a statue for Phyllisette,

the first cat in space.

Phyllisette briefly strutted into headlines when she took her short flight in 1963.

At the time, the effects of launches and weightlessness on the human body were still poorly understood.

So a group of French scientists decided to observe what happens to a floating cat.

Felicet was chosen from a group of 14 intensively space-trained cats.

It was either her calm demeanor or sleek physique that made her the winner.

She was hooked up with electrodes and rocketed to an altitude of nearly 100 miles.

After experiencing weightlessness for about five minutes, she parachuted back down in a capsule.

Researchers then observed her behavior for a few months after which she was supposedly sacrificed for study of her brain.

Now, after all these years, Guy created a Kickstarter project that aims to raise nearly 53,000 dollars to build a 1.5 meter

bronze statue of Felicit in her hometown of Paris.

The deadline is 301 a.m. Eastern Time on Friday, November 17th.

To find the Kickstarter page, just Google Kickstarter and SpaceCat.

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