Russia remembers Laika the space dog
Published 03 November, 2007, 07:08
Fifty years ago, at the start of the Cold War space race, the first living creature ventured beyond the Earth's atmosphere. On November 3, 1957, just a month after the first satellite entered space, a stray dog called Laika started on a journey of no return.
Following the success of Sputnik, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wanted a second spacecraft launched within the month to mark the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Sputnik 2 wasn't designed to return to earth. So Laika's fate was sealed.
“We said goodbye and apologized in front of her. We were so sorry, we knew there was no way of bringing her back. But we needed to determine the possibility of a complex living creature functioning in space,” Ada Kotovskaya from Moscow’s Institute of Medical Problems recalls.
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