
Remembering Laika, Space Dog and Soviet Hero - fishcolorbrick
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/remembering-laika-space-dog-and-soviet-hero?google_editors_picks=true
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krrrh
If you are in the LA area the Museum of Jurassic Technology is worth visiting
for, among other reasons, the room dedicated to the dogs of the Soviet space
program. It features paintings and bios of 5 dogs who were involved in the
space program.

[http://www.mjt.org/recentaddtions/creatures.html](http://www.mjt.org/recentaddtions/creatures.html)

Edit: Some info about and images of the paintings here:

[http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-
cam-...](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-painter-
ma-peers-soviet-space-dogs-20151223-column.html)

~~~
jjxw
I'll enthusiastically second the recommendation. I won't ruin too much, but
their policy of not allowing mobile phones while you are in the museum to
prevent you from searching anything up really helps to preserve the
atmosphere.

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liberte82
I remember reading about Laika as a kid and how they sent up the dog in space
and just let it die up there. It made me feel so bad and still does today. :(

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amelius
Yes, but there are worse things happening to animals even as we speak, and for
less noble purposes.

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caio1982
Don't "yes, but" this, folks. The parent comment was very specific, focused,
why not just ponder it?

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nasredin
Thank you our furry cosmonauts for pioneering a new frontier for us shitty
ungrateful humans.

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Amorymeltzer
The author of this piece, Alex Wellerstein, is absolutely fantastic on the
history of the Nuclear bomb, and I cannot recommend his blog enough:
[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com)

His twitter is also worth a follow:
[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com)

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strictnein
Random, but she's also the central character in Trentemøller's video for Moan:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZPxvO1ftY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZPxvO1ftY)

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dmlorenzetti
For cultural references, in my opinion you can't beat Hallstrom/Jonsson's "My
Life as a Dog", whose main character ponders the fate of Laika while his own
life undergoes traumatic changes.

[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_life_as_a_dog/](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_life_as_a_dog/)

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kizzy55
I remember reading about Laika when I was a child. Growing up when the space
race was really big I remember both countries us and the Russians sending up
animals to test how they would react in space before sending up a human.

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sushisource
I did not need to be tearing up at work today :(

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grasshopperpurp
If something like this makes me tear up, which this did, I usually find that I
needed it.

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richardknop
A great achievement. I remember reading about Laika when I was a child. I was
into astronauts (or cosmonauts) a lot when I was a child, I dreamed of
becoming an astronaut for NASA. I read all books related to space travel and
astronautics at the time.

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Morphior
I still want to be involved in space travel sometime. Not just a dream I had
as a child, personally.

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cgh
Laika is a character in The Manhattan Projects, a great comic from Image. It's
written by Robert Kirkman, a co-creator of The Walking Dead.

[https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/the-manhattan-
projects](https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/the-manhattan-projects)

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Theodores
Stalin had a saying, I paraphrase:

One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

I think the reaction to Laika's demise illustrated this.

The exact quantity of dogs 'put to sleep' in 1964 in the USA is not known.
However, I am sure that many thousands were 'put to sleep' every single day,
with more than a million dogs euthanised in the USA over the year because that
is what happens.

Incidentally, the last shuttle disaster (Challenger, 2003) was bad news for 13
rats, eight garden orb weaver spiders, five silkworms and three cocoons, four
Medaka fish eggs, three carpenter bees, 15 harvester ants and an assortment of
fish. Plus the human crew.

I am sure all of the animals all had names. There was no mass outpouring of
emotion though or letters to the New York Times saying how cruel it was to put
them on the Space Shuttle given the likeliness of it going badly wrong.

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enlightenedfool
Humans are funny in a way. Mourn and get emotional about dogs and pets and
mercilessly slaughter chicken, cows and pigs everyday.

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wruza
I think the perspective is more cynical: they mourn and reflect on “sad news”
instead of actual events. Everyone knows that there is help needed to make
human/animal situation more sane (in many senses of sane), but most of the
help is putting likes on fb or choosing single data points to resolve.

Prove me wrong, but I think that sane relationships with animals should come
from cold mind weighting statistical decisions (no matter if you’re going to
eat, pet or test them), not from emotional sort of hypocrisy of _either_
pet/slaughter way.

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dmlorenzetti
For those in the SF Bay area, the Chabot space center has a lot of old Soviet
space hardware -- including a training capsule like the one in the picture at
the top of the article.

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Rebelgecko
The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City has a small exhibit on Soviet
space dogs. It's one of the more grounded parts of the "museum"

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boggio
Just read the wiki page for Korolev and damn.. that man's life was a tragedy.

Somehow he managed to put everything behind him and literally kick-start the
space race and achieve all the Soviet first's in space.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev)

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posnet
You can see taxidermied Belka and Strelka at the Moscow space museum. A bit
morbid, but they are front and center as parts of the soviet space program.

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peckrob
Somewhat related, Miss Baker [0] was one of the first two animals launched by
the United States into space and recovered alive.

After her flight and some time in Florida, she lived at the U.S. Space and
Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama until her death. She was a "star" there,
routinely receiving fan mail from kids around the country. When she died in
1984, she was buried in front of the museum. You walk right by her grave on
the way in. People often leave bananas.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Baker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Baker)

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vermontdevil
Here's some more in detail about Laika:

[https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/laika-
declassified-...](https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/laika-
declassified-180967077/)

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riku_iki
Why nobody's remembering Albert II - the first animal reached the space? He
even doesn't have wiki article..

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pavel_lishin
Can you enlighten us?

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riku_iki
Albert was followed by Albert II who survived the V-2 flight but died on
impact on June 14, 1949, after a parachute failure.[2] Albert II became the
first monkey and first primate in space as his flight reached 134 km (83 mi) -
past the Kármán line of 100 km taken to designate the beginning of space.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeys_and_apes_in_space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeys_and_apes_in_space)

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beat
Adding to the cultural references... Jonathan Coulton wrote a superb song
about Laika called "Space Doggity".

The cage is very small, a tiny silver ball that makes you a hero the moment
you step inside. The world is watching you, what you're about to do will live
on forever, even though you'll be dead and gone, buckle up we're about to turn
the engines on.

Hello from Sputnik 2, I am receiving you. Thanks for the the dog food, I'm
somewhere above you now. Guess what, Maloshenkov? I took my collar off I'm
holding my own leash, walking myself outside this door. I don't think I want
to be a good dog anymore.

Now I'm floating free, and the moon's with me and it's bright enough to light
the dark. And it's so high up here, and the stars so clear, Are they close
enough? Will they hear me bark from here?

Hello to Sputnik 2, I think we're losing you, Your lifesigns are fading, I
can't really say that we're surprised. It's a shame, there's always something
that gets compromised

Now I'm floating free, and the moon's with me and it's bright enough to light
the dark. And it's so high up here, and the stars so clear Are they close
enough? Will they hear me bark from here?

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dsnuh
There is also "Laika" by Arcade Fire. Not necessarily about the dog, but the
only other song I can think of that even mentions Laika.

[https://youtu.be/C4EmXN9xvdE](https://youtu.be/C4EmXN9xvdE)

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deadhead
There's also "Laika" by Moxy Früvous, referring to the dog.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlG-
kpzMQIw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlG-kpzMQIw)

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Avery3R
Anyone have a link without a paywall?

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DanCarvajal
I fucking cried during her episode in Space Dandy.

