Laika, the first animal sent into space and the first person to die outside of Earth. “I didn’t learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog”
This year marks the 67th anniversary of the death of one of the world’s most famous and compassionate puppies: Laika. The first puppy that was sent into space, for experimental purposes, and which unfortunately became part of the universe with the explosion of the space shuttle it was in.
Laika was about 3 years old when, on November 3, 1957, she was sent into space aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2, on a mission that was part of the Soviet space exploration program and aimed at testing the effects of spaceflight on living organisms, including whether they could survive the extreme conditions of spaceflight and exposure to radiation and microgravity.
“We asked her to forgive us, and I even cried when I stroked her for the last time,” declared the Russian biologist Adilya Kotovskaya (1927 – 2020), recalling the day she said goodbye to , a quadruped taken by on the street that would go down in history as the first living thing to orbit the Earth, unfortunately embarking on a one-way journey.
Laika, the first cosmonaut in the world
“But things didn’t go exactly to plan and the dog only managed to survive for a few hours, flying around the Earth nine times,” writes Thejournal.ie. “These nine orbits around the Earth made Laika the world’s first cosmonaut – sacrificed for the sake of the success of future space missions,” added Kotovskaya, who also said she was proud of her pioneering work as a scientist who trained -Laika and other early space animals.
Then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saw the achievement as an opportunity to demonstrate the Soviet Union’s technological and military superiority over the United States. During the period, the competition between the two superpowers was intensified, and every achievement in the field of space technology was perceived as a symbolic victory. Laika’s journey not only demonstrated the technical capabilities of the Soviets, but also sent a clear message to the Americans: The Soviet Union was capable of developing its space programs in a way designed to surpass that of the United States.
Laika had no chance of survival
But although Khrushchev and Soviet leaders rejoiced at the mission’s initial success, international reactions were mixed. On the one hand, many people admired the courage and innovation involved in the expedition; on the other hand, there were ethical concerns about the use of animals in space experiments. Laika had no chance of survival upon returning to Earth; she died in flight from heat stress and lack of oxygen.
Thus, Laika’s journey was not just a technological feat; it served as a political tool designed to demonstrate the strength of the Soviet Union to America. Khrushchev used this success to strengthen his position both domestically and internationally.
In a well-timed propaganda effort, the flight took place just before the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution on November 7.
“Kotovskaya recalled that before Laika several dogs had been thrown into suborbital space for short periods of a few minutes to check if it was possible to survive in weightlessness.” “But now it was time to send one into space.”
Why was Laika chosen?
Also, for this mission, several canine candidates had been selected, subsequently put through all kinds of training and preparation and fed including “space” food.
Poor Laika, her unwitting hero, was a greyhound about three years old and weighing 6 kg. Like the rest of the candidate puppies, she had been taken from a street in Moscow while walking.
“We chose bitches because they don’t have to lift a leg to urinate, which means they need less space than males,” Kotovskaya said. “And I chose the tramps because they are more resourceful and less pretentious.” Otherwise, for publicity reasons, as the Soviet press reported, the quadrupeds had to be good-looking, and implicitly photogenic, and they were all given names.
Laika (whose name literally means “the barker”) was ultimately chosen from five or six candidates because she was resourceful, docile and had a slightly surprised expression.
The temperature in the capsule began to rise uncontrollably
“Of course, I knew she was destined to die during the flight, because there was no way to bring her back – it was not possible at the time,” continued Kotovskaya, who on the eve of the mission wanted to say goodbye to the puppy and gave him one last caress.
The Sputnik satellite carrying Laika lifted off on a rocket at 5:30 a.m. Moscow time from Kazakhstan, where the Soviet Union would later base its Baikonur Cosmodrome.
As if nothing happened
For the moment, everything seemed to be going normally, except that Laika the puppy’s monitored beats had sped up a lot, only to later return to normal. “Then suddenly, during the ninth orbit of the Earth, the temperature inside the capsule began to rise uncontrollably, reaching over 40 degrees Celsius, due to insufficient insulation from the Sun’s rays. The hope was that Laika would stay alive for eight to 10 days, but instead she died of overheating and dehydration after a few hours.” Laika had died, but the news broadcast on the Soviet radio station flowed as if nothing had happened, falsely announcing that everything was fine, including Laika. Also, because the news of the death had to be announced publicly at some point, it was chosen as the official version to say that he died after eating the poison administered in his food to avoid a painful death on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Moscow maintained this fiction for many years.
The satellite carrying Laika’s remains burned up in the atmosphere five months later, on April 14, 1958, over the Antilles group of islands.
Laika died painlessly, but…
After it was known that Laika had died, there were obviously reactions from people, most of them being outraged and saddened by her fate and many condemning the experiment as inhumane, monstrous, horrible and unethical, with all the attempts of the Russian scientists to assure the public that Laika died painlessly, even though she was stressed for most of the flight, and that she made invaluable contributions to space science.
“Within the Soviet Union, Laika and her comrades were seen as heroes,” the New Yorker wrote. “Furthermore, they were heroes whom the Communists could safely trade. And as Olesya Turkina writes in Soviet Space Dogs, under socialism the niche occupied by popular culture in capitalist society was subject to strict ideological control. And that’s because the Kremlin considered dogs ideologically safe, the first Soviet pop stars, appearing on every product imaginable – matchboxes, razor blades, postcards, stamps, chocolate, cigarettes. Later space dogs, such as the famous Belka and Strelka, were brought back to earth alive and their puppies used as international goodwill ambassadors. In fact, the animals were so beloved that when Yuri Gargarin reached orbit in 1961, he is said to have said, “Am I the first man in space or the last dog?” Earlier that year, NASA sent a chimpanzee into space they named Ham, although his original name was Chop-Chop Chang. Many other animals followed – rats, mice, frogs, fish, salamanders, even turtles. The first “alien” spider web was woven in 1973).
Dogs, ideologically safe
But Laika’s story contained a dark secret. In 2002, forty-five years after the event, Russian scientists revealed that she had died, presumably in agony, after only a few hours in orbit. In the rush to send another satellite into space, Soviet engineers did not have time to properly test Sputnik 2’s cooling system; capsule overheating. It remained in orbit for five months with Laika inside, then plunged into the atmosphere and burned up over the Caribbean, a space casket turned shooting star. Turkina quotes one of the scientists in charge of Laika’s program: The more time goes by, the more I feel sorry for it. We shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t learn enough from the mission to justify the dog’s death.” The statement belongs to Oleg Gazenko and he made it in 1998, after the collapse of the Soviet regime.
In 1957, the Romanian Post issued the famous stamp with the image of the puppy – “Laika, the first traveler in the cosmos”. Furthermore, Laika is also commemorated in the form of a statue and , the Russian cosmonaut training center, the statue being positioned behind the cosmonauts, and representing Laika with her ears up. There is also the Monument to the Conquerors of Space in Moscow, built in 1964, which also includes Laika, and another monument dedicated to the canine heroine on April 11, 2008, at the military research facility where personnel were responsible for preparing Laika for flight.
Sources:
