On 3 November 1957, satellite Sputnik 2 was launched in space. Aboard was Laika, a husky-spitz mix who used to live in the streets of Moscow.
Soviet rocket scientists considered the whole mission a feat, knowing that they were sending a “small and shaggy dog” on a one-way trip, a suicide mission.
Laika was originally named Kudrayavka which means Little Curly. Her later name, which translates to Barker, came about when she was said to have barked during a radio interview. She was chosen out of a lot because of her gender, size, and her brightly colored (so footage of her in space would be clear) mane.
The Associated Press called Laika a cosmonaut, a term referring to an astronaut in the Soviet or Russian space program. The mission was done in a rush to put a new satellite in space just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Laika’s story gets even sadder.
Engineers who worked on Laika’s project knew from the beginning that she would never set foot on Earth again as Sputnik 2 was designed to burn itself once it reentered the atmosphere.
For 45 years, Russian scientists have kept up the fiction that Laika survived for seven days in space. But, in 2002, it was revealed that she had died just hours after the launch.
“The temperature inside the spacecraft after the fourth orbit registered over 90 degrees. There’s really no expectation that she made it beyond an orbit or two after that,” Cathleen Lewis, curator of international space programs and spacesuits at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, said.
Further documents revealed that Laika reached the orbit alive, circling the Earth for about 103 minutes. Noises and pressures of the flight terrified her which, later, resulted in her heartbeat rocketing to triple its normal rate and her breath rate quadrupled. It was the unexpected temperature rise in her capsule that caused her death.
THOUGH the first animal to orbit the earth, Laika wasn’t the first one to reach outer space.
Sputnik 2 continued to orbit for five months with Laika’s body in it. It disintegrated over the Carribean when it reentered the atmosphere on 14 April 1958.
Though being the first animal to orbit the Earth, Laika isn’t the first to reach outer space. The Soviet Union launched two dogs, Dezik and Tsygan, to space in 1951. After Laika’s project, more animals were sent to space: Chimpanzees, rats, frogs, fish, mice, salamanders, tortoises, and even spiders, according to The New Yorker.
Apparently, Laika was not the last dog to take flight.
In 1960, Russian launched Sputnik 5 to space with dogs Strelka and Belka. The two canines made it back to Earth. Strelka produced puppies, one of which was given to President John F. Kennedy.
It is with my deepest hope that Laika’s story continues to live on, that her sacrifice has paved the way for human space exploration.