A 1950s Soviet dog spacesuit will cross the block at Auctionata in Berlin on September 13 with a valuation of $10,500.
The lot is made from a combination of nylon, rubber, cotton and aluminium.
 The spacesuit was manufactured by RSC Energia |
It's one of only a handful known to have survived to the present day and is likely to attract a great deal of attention from curious bidders.
The house explained the origin of the suit. "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," it said.
"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."
It was likely used during training ahead of the Sputnik 5 mission of 1960. This was the last test run prior to Yuri Gagarin's flight aboard Vostok 1 in 1961.
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