Scientists opted to use strays from the Russian capital for their missions because they were used to surviving extreme cold and hunger.įor the Sputnik 2 flight – which came a month after the empty Sputnik 1 was successfully sent into orbit – the Soviets also trained two other dogs: Albina and Mushka.ĭr Vladimir Yazdovsky, one of the scientists on the mission, later revealed in a book about the space race that he had taken Laika home to play with his children before the launch. Three-year-old Laika's journey began when she was rescued from the streets of Moscow. In 1951, the Soviet Union sent two dogs – Tsygan and Dezik – into space, but not into orbit. The 1950s was even more fruitful for animal trips beyond Earth. Then Albert II, a rhesus macaque, became the first monkey in space when, in 1949, he was also launched in a V-2 rocket. The first animals in space were fruit flies, sent from a U.S.-launched V-2 rocket in 1947. Laika's path to global recognition had several years of research and development behind it. achieved the most coveted feat of all with their Apollo 11 mission: they put men on the moon and returned them to Earth, where they were rightly hailed as heroes.Īt the time, the Russians told the world that, until her air supply ran out, the dog had survived for six days inside a capsule which provided her with food, water and oxygen. ![]() The following year, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to journey into outer space.Īnd then, most famously, the U.S. Less than three years after her flight, two other Russian dogs – Belka and Strelka – became the first animals to go into orbit and return alive. ![]() Yet, despite the tragic end to her life, Laika had taken Communist Russia's fierce competition with the United States up another level. ![]() On November 3, 1957, the little part-husky dog – who was also known as Curly – became the first animal to orbit Earth when she flew out of the atmosphere in the Soviet Union's Sputnik 2 spacecraft.Īt the time, the Russians told the world that, until her air supply ran out, the dog had survived for six days inside a capsule which provided her with food, water and oxygen.Īnimal rights groups around the world, including in the UK, had fiercely protested the sending of a dog into space and it soon emerged that Laika had in fact passed away from either overheating or asphyxiation within a matter of hours – before she had been due to be poisoned after fulfilling her purpose. Whilst Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are rightly hailed as being the first men to step on the moon, it was a stray mongrel named Laika who propelled the space race into new territory.
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