#Did laika survive how to#

Sure enough, o n August 19, 1960, two more Moscow strays, Belka and Strelka, became the first living creatures to make the round trip to space. Her fame ensured that going forward efforts would be made to protect the lives of canine cosmonauts. Sent by the USSR, the dog safely orbited Earth for seven days, proving that it was possible for a creature to survive the stress of a launch into space and to. She was featured on stamps and coins, and memorialized in a Moscow statue. LaikaвЂ™s journey sparked not one but two historic advances: the era of human space exploration, and the animal rights movement, particularly in scientific testing. In 1999 several Russian sources (such as the scientists involved in the space programme) stated that Laika had died on the fourth orbit of the Earth after a. She perished, circling the earth, most likely from the profound heat created by the capsuleвЂ™s firing rockets.

#Did laika survive how to#

But there was a problem: the Soviets had not worked out how to get Laika back. Monitors followed the sound of her tiny beating heart all the way into EarthвЂ™s orbit. If she was to make history, they reasoned, she would need to be photogenic. Nine days before the scheduled launch, they chose Laika for her gentle disposition and natural beauty. The mission was too dangerous to risk a human life, so the Soviets decided to train a stray dog to be RussiaвЂ™s first cosmonaut. ThatвЂ™s when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev insisted that his scientists perform a second test-this time to determine if a living being could survive the journey to the stars. Just a month earlier, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union-Cold War nemesis of the United States-launched into orbit historyвЂ™s first satellite, Sputnik 1. LaikaвЂ™s unlikely journey was borne out of the race to prove that human spaceflight was possible.

No small feat for a stray that only days before had been fighting for scraps on the streets of Moscow! It wasn't until 2002 that the truth finally came out: Laika died in a state of panic when the capsule overheated just a few hours after Sputnik 2 was launched. And when her spaceship pierced the EarthвЂ™s atmosphere, she became the first creature in history to make it to outer space. For decades, the official line was that Laika had survived for seven days in orbit before dying painlessly. The orbit of Sputnik 2 decayed and it reentered Earths. Inside was a diminutive, 14-pound, black and white dog named Laika. It is believed Laika survived for only about two days instead of the planned ten because of the heat. On November 3, 1957, a tiny capsule rocketed into space.