A 1950s Soviet spacesuit designed for a dog sold for $18,103 at Auctionata in Berlin on September 13.
It's one of very few surviving examples to have been used in the test stages for the Russian space programme and is thought to have been worn by either Belka or Strelka - who were involved in testing for Sputnik 5 in 1960.
 The spacesuit is made nylon, rubber, cotton and aluminium |
Auctionata commented in the runup to the sale: "In the fifties, Russian scientists developed this type of high pressure suits to test the effects of low gravity and high-speed launches on dogs."
"In these tests, which seem rather rough today, dogs and, sometimes mice and rats, were strapped into a space capsule and launched 80 km away from the earth returning later with a parachute landing.
"While Russian scientists preferred dogs to primates for their tests because dogs could sit still for a longer time, Americans used chimpanzees due of their similarity to humans."
The Sputnik 5 mission was the last test flight before Yuri Gagarin's historic orbit of the Earth in 1961 aboard Vostok 1.
A small piece of Vostok 1 signed by Gagarin was another highlight, achieving $9,698.
We have an incredible selection of space memorabilia available, including a page from Life magazine signed by all three astronauts on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission.
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