November 3, 1957

Meria

Elder Lister
Staff member
Just one month after stunning the world by launching the Sputnik satellite into orbit, the Soviet Union ready to launch Sputnik 2. Like the first Sputnik, the second would be unmanned. But it would not be uncreatured.
Needing to acquire data that could be used to determine the feasibility of manned space flights, the Soviets took a couple of stray dogs from the streets of Moscow and began the training that would make them suitable as passengers on the spacecraft. The dog ultimately selected for the mission was given the name Kudryavka (“Little Curly” in English), but her boisterous personality soon earned her the nickname Laika, (“Barker” in English) and that is how history remembers her.
The Soviet team embedded monitors in Laika and conditioned her for the experience. An affectionate and docile dog, the team became fond of her. One of the scientists took her home with him just before the flight, so she could play with his children and enjoy herself. When she was placed in the rocket the team said goodbye. For Laika it was always intended to be a one-way mission.
The plan was to monitor Laika while she orbited the earth for several days, until the oxygen supply ran out and she died a painless death. And the Soviets told the world that is what happened. But they were lying. Documents released in 1993 revealed for the first time that a heat shield inside the spacecraft failed after the fourth orbit, causing temperatures to rise so high that Laika did not survive past the sixth orbit. Sputnik 2 continued to orbit the earth for another five months. When it burned up on reentering the atmosphere, Laika’s remains were cremated.
In 2015 Russia unveiled a monument to Laika at a research facility in Moscow and in 2005 NASA named a portion of a Martian crater in her honor. The data that she supplied on her brief space flight was used to help make possible future nonfatal flights by both humans and nonhumans.
Laika was launched into space aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957, sixty-five years ago today. She became the first earth creature to orbit the planet.


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