Laika

Laika was a dog who was launched into orbit with Sputnik II, of the Sputnik program, on November 3 1957 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, making her the first living passenger to orbit Earth (she is usually remembered as the first animal in space, but this is not correct; both the Soviet Union and United States had launched animals to space before Sputnik II, but they were not orbital flights.)

Sputnik II was not designed to be retrievable and it was destroyed on re-entry on May 14 1958, but Laika had already died before that; it had been planned that she would be euthanized with a poisoned serving of food; in 1999 several Russian sources said that Laika died after four days when the cabin overheated. However, in October 2002 it was revealed by Russian sources that Laika died already after a few hours from overheating and stress.

External links

• David Whitehouse, First dog in space died within hours, BBC Online, Oct. 28, 2002
  • http://news.bbc.co.uk/sci/2367681.stm
• Anatoly Zak, The True Story of Laika the Dog, www.space.com, Nov. 3, 1999
  • http://www.space.com/news/laika_anniversary_991103.html