Fly in Space
Droso was a newborn fruit fly.
He opened his wings for the first time, and flapped them up and down very fast. 220 times in one second, to be exact!
“WOW I’m flying!” he shouted.
Droso looked down at the rotten banana on which he was born.
What a view! His sister Phila was finding her wings too.
“How high can I fly?” Droso wondered, and flew a little higher.
Phila liked going up too, but not as much as she liked to pose.
One leg here, two legs there, and the other three over there. She posed in different ways.
“I want to be a model,” she announced.
The next day, Droso flew to the top of the fruit basket. The day after that, he made it to the top of the refrigerator.
Higher and higher Droso flew, until ...
he hit the ceiling. He couldn't fly any higher!
You see, Droso and Phila were inside Richa's house. Richa was an astronaut. In two weeks, Richa would sit in a rocket and shoot up into space.
She had been so busy planning her trip, that she hadn’t noticed her bananas rotting.
Richa the astronaut was not so different from Droso the fruit fly.
Like Droso, Richa also wanted to go to higher places.
Flying to space had always been Richa’s dream. And it was about to come true. How exciting!
All Richa thought about was space!
Space begins a hundred kilometres or so above the Earth. It has no air to breathe and no ground to stand on. There is no up and no down! So in space, nothing falls down.
Astronauts like Richa just float around.
What a strange place!
Richa often wondered, “How would birds fly in a place like space where there is no up and no down?”
There was only one way to find out.
“I’ll take a bird with me to space!” she decided.
But which one? A pigeon, perhaps? No, it has too many feathers. A crow? Too big. A sparrow? Too noisy. Also, it eats too much.
Richa thought long and hard until she got very hungry. She reached for the fruit basket. “Yuck, rotten fruits!”
And that’s when she saw Droso and Phila buzzing around.
“Fruit flies!” cried out Richa. “They are perfect for space!”
She put Droso and Phila in a jar. She also put some rotten banana goop in the jar for them to eat.
Then, she threw out the rotting banana peel and made herself a sandwich.
Today is the day that Richa flies into space.
Look at what is in her hand!
Phila is the first ever space model. Astronauts take many photos of her eating and resting in space.
And Droso? Richa and her scientist friends closely watch how he uses his wings in space.
Look! Droso the fruit fly is finally going high, high, high... higher than any other fly in the world.
Animals in Space
Drosophila is the scientific name of the fruit fly.
The fruit fly was the first animal to travel to space. This happened in 1947.
Did you know that fruit flies and humans have some things in common? They can remember things just like us, and they even fall sick like we do! Which is why scientists love to study fruit flies in space. After all, it's easier to send flies to space than humans! And this is why fruit flies are known as model organisms.
Do you know who else has been to space? Albert the monkey, Laika the dog, Ham the chimpanzee, and Arabella the spider!