The first animals to circle the Moon weren't astronauts—they were two Central Asian steppe tortoises aboard the Soviet Zond 5, which beat Apollo 8 by three months in 1968. They returned alive after the week-long journey, having lost only about 10% of their body weight.

The first animals to circle the Moon weren't astronauts—they were two Central Asian steppe tortoises aboard the Soviet Zond 5, which beat Apollo 8 by three months in 1968. They returned alive after the week-long journey, having lost only about 10% of their body weight.

Before any person left Earth orbit, two small tortoises travelled around the Moon and came back alive. They did it inside a spacecraft designed as a precursor to a crewed Soviet lunar mission, survived a steep re-entry and splashed down far from the intended recovery zone. Zond 5 launched on 15 September 1968, passed the Moon three days later and returned on 21 September. Apollo 8 would not launch until 21 December. The comparison is real, but t…