Laika ("barker" in Russian, and "Mutnik" to the western press) was a mongrel husky-mix stray bitch picked up off the streets of Moscow. She achieved fame as the first animal ever to be sent into space, rocketing into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957. This launch occured just one month after that of the Soviet Union's first manmade satellite, Sputnik 1, which was still in orbit at the time. The Sputnik 1 was a 40 pound sphere carrying a simple transmitter, whereas the 250 pound Sputnik 2 (1100 pounds along with the launch rocket) carried a living occupant and sensitive instruments to benefit from the flight as much as possible.
Laika's cabin was equipped with a television camera, sensors to monitor her blood pressure, heart beat and breath frequency and the ambient temperature and pressure. Above the cabin was a spherical container similar to Sputnik 1, which held a radio transmitter and instruments to monitor ultraviolet and x-ray radiation. Laika was strapped in in a special harness with access to both food and water.
Laika was doomed from the start as the craft she travelled on had not been designed to ever be recovered. The hope was to study how Laika lived and died in space, and draw lessons from it that could be used to help later manned missions. The cabin she was in did not even disengage from its booster, with the idea being to use the rockets own telemetry systems to track the capsule.
All aspects of this space flight have been mired in controversy for years, with experts disagreeing even over how long it took Laika to die. Estimates vary from 24 hours to as long as ten days, depending who you ask. As to how she finally died, one theory has it that the last of her food pelets held a drug that put her to sleep. Another idea is that the batteries that powered her life support finally ran out - which would mean Laika survived until at least the sixth day. Other ideas are that after four days her cabin was filled with a deadly gas - a sort of euthenasia, that she succumbed to oxygen depletion or extreme cold. Recently, Georgi Grechko, a cosmonaut who worked as an engineer at the Korolev Design Bureau, has revealed that Laika survived in orbit for just four days. She finally died when her cabin overheated. The rocket she was travelling on had been derived from experimental balistic missiles, and the four week cold war time frame within which the mission was planned and executed left the Soviet scientists little opportunity to devise suitable heat-shielding.
After six days in orbit the capsule exhausted its electrical batteries, continuing to orbit without any functioning systems for 163 days, until the 14th of April, 1958, when it burned up on reentry after 2570 orbits. In November 1997, on the fortieth anniversary of the mission, a small plaque commemorating Laika and other dogs who contributed to space flight was unveiled at the Institute for Aviation and Space Medicine in Star City near Moscow. The monument itself is devoted to the cosmonauts, but in one corner is a mongrel dog - ears standing straight.
Although used for years as an example of the superiority of Soviet science over the west, the mission did more to propel to the forefront the debate over the treatement of animals. Within the Soviet Union the mission was widely ridiculed by many ordinary citizens as propaganda.
Laika was just one of thirteen dogs sent by the Soviet Union into space between 1957 and 1966. The others included:
Lisichka ("Little Fox") and Bars ("Panther" or "Lynx") - died during a test flight on July 28, 1960.
Strelka ("Little Arrow"), Belka ("Squirrel"), forty mice, two rats and a quantity of plants were launched on August 19, 1960 aboard the Korabl-Sputnik-2, which orbited the Earth 18 times before the animals were successfully brought back down. This was the first time living creatures had been sent into orbit and been recovered alive. Strelka later gave birth to 6 puppies, one of which was given to President John F. Kennedy as a gift.
Pchelka ("Little Bee") and Mushka ("Little Fly") died when Korabl-Sputnik-3, launched December 1, 1960, reentered Earth's atmosphere at the wrong angle and burned up.
Damka ("Little Lady") and Krasavka ("Beauty") were launched December 22, 1960. The third stage of the SL-3 rocket failed to ignite properly and the mission was aborted. The rocket was recovered, with both dogs having survived their suborbital flight.
Chernushka ("Blackie"), a dummy cosmonaut (known as "Ivan Ivanovich"), a few mice and a guinea pig were launced on March 9, 1961.
Zvezdochka ("Little Star"), named by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, orbited the earth on March 25, 1961 along with a dummy cosmonaut in a spacesuit in preparation for the Vostok 1 mission.
Verterok or Veterok ("Breeze") and Ugolyok or Ugolek ("Little Piece of Coal") launched aboard the Kosmos 110 satellite on February 22, 1962. This was a 22 day mission.
Trivia:
- Laika's original name was Kudryavka ("Little Curly"), with Laika being given her for the space flight.
- It is said that ham radio operators around the world were able to tune in to Laika's heart beat during the mission.
- Dune dedicated their song Million Miles From Home to the memory of Laika.
- The space capsule itself took just over an hour and forty minutes to orbit the earth.
- One year after the launch of Laika one of the scientists who had worked on the mission stated:
"The more time passes, the more I'm sorry....We shouldn't have done it....We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog."
Sources:
Laika Memorial Page - http://pages.prodigy.com/CyberSpaceStation/laika.htm
Laika, first dog in space - http://www.stanford.edu/group/itss-ccs/project/spacedog/spacedog.gallery/laika/
The True Story of Laika the Dog - http://www.space.com/news/laika_anniversary_991103.html
Memorial to Laika - http://www.novareinna.com/bridge/laika.html
This writeup dedicated to the memory of Laika, who unwillingly gave her life so that humanity might reach the stars... | 
