Story by Anatoly Zak
November 3, 1999
Lifted in the spirit of collectivism off a bourgeois site, Space.com

On November 3, 1957, the U.S.S.R. stunned the world with a space sensation -- the launch of Sputnik 2 with a live dog on-board. But many details of what happened to the mission have only recently been revealed.

The Space Age had started less than a month before, with the launch of the first Soviet satellite on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1, a 40-pound sphere, carried a simple transmitter and was considered very heavy compared to the U.S. spacecraft under development at the time.

Enter Sputnik 2. The Soviet press boasted about the 250-pound object equipped with a cabin, providing all the necessary life support for a dog named Laika. Well, almost. The Soviets admitted soon after the launch that the spacecraft would not return, meaning that the animal was doomed from the start. Years after Sputnik 2 burned up in the atmosphere, conflicting scenarios of Laika's death were circulating in the West.

Recently, several Russian sources revealed that Laika survived in orbit for four days and then died when the cabin overheated. The design of the cabin was derived from the nose sections of experimental ballistic missiles that carried dogs into the upper atmosphere in short and relatively slow-speed flights, ending in a parachute landing. ~With Sputnik 2, the Cold War politics left no time for designers to develop a life-support system for a long-duration flight, not to mention to protect a spacecraft for a fiery reentry.

Laika's story started soon after the Sputnik 1 triumph, when Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader at the time, hosted a big reception for leading rocket designers. Among those present was Sergei Korolev, the founder of the Soviet space program. At the reception, Khrushchev made the suggestion that another Sputnik be launched to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution celebrated on November 7.

At the time, Korolev had a sophisticated research satellite in the works. However, it could not possibly be ready for takeoff before December 1957. That satellite would later become Sputnik 3. To meet the November anniversary deadline, an entirely new design for Sputnik 2 emerged.

According to various Russian sources, the official decision to launch Sputnik 2 before November 7 was made on October 10 or 12, 1957. In any case, Korolev's team had less than four weeks to design and build the spacecraft.

"All traditions developed in rocket technology were thrown out (during work on the second satellite)," wrote Boris Chertok, deputy to Sergei Korolev. "The second satellite was created without preliminary design, or any kind of design." According to Chertok's memoirs, most elements of the spacecraft were manufactured from sketches, while engineers moved into production facilities to assist workers on site.

The common belief is that Sputnik 2 failed to separate from its booster. In reality, the satellite was designed to remain attached to the upper stage of its launcher, so that the rocket's own telemetry system could be used to transmit data from the spacecraft.

The scientists did their best to benefit from this opportunity created by Cold War politics. Laika's cabin was equipped with a television camera, along with sensors to measure ambient pressure and temperature, as well as the canine passenger's blood pressure, breath frequency and heartbeat. These instruments allowed ground controllers to monitor how Laika functioned and died in space. Above the dog's cabin, the engineers mounted a spherical container that was developed for Sputnik 1. It held a radio transmitter and an instrument to register ultraviolet and x-ray radiation.

After a successful launch, Sputnik 2 exhausted its electrical batteries after six days in orbit. With all systems dead, the spacecraft continued circling the Earth until April 14, 19 58 , when it reentered the atmosphere after 2,570 orbits.

The Sputnik 2 flight exemplified how science was propelled by Cold War politics -- a trend that would become more pronounced on both sides of the Atlantic in later years.

Although advertised as another example of the superiority of the Soviet system, Laika's mission also brought a few unintended results. In the West, Sputnik 2 renewed the debate over the treatment of animals, while in the U.S.S.R., the flight was widely ridiculed by ordinary citizens as propaganda.

* * *

BUT THIS OF COURSE IS A PACK OF LIES!

This so-called Anatoly Zak doesn't exist! The CCCP had invented the molecular transporter by 1957 and I was able to beam down to Star City without incident on my maiden flight. Much later in the 1960's a science fiction writer and producer for the West named Roddenberry would incorporate our discovery into his TV show, thinking that by 2005 the whole world would be beaming back and forth from outer space. Unfortunately Yuri Gargarin died in the last transporter accident in March of 1968 and we had to cover it up with a "Helicopter mishap". Since then the Americanskis have decoded our transporter frequencies and there has been a frequency war ever since with me being the only entity the Americanskis cannot genetically decode for the beaming frequency.

Laika

Poor Laika...
(First!)

Poor Laika Space Dog is right. They could have done the same thing using a lab rat instead of mans best friend!

A frickin rat? What kind of message would that send to the west? "Ahah, we finally have a rival for your cartoon rodent idol Mickey Mouse! Eat rat shit you capitalist pigs!"

Well why not a monkey then, with all the evolutionists arround they would say that it was the closest thing to sending a human up there.

Oh, Laika... You're my favourite among Marxist/Leninist celebrities..
With you looking out for us 24/7, The Revolution has nothing to worry about!

P.S. Also, I dream of being awarded with "Laika - Friend of People" sign.. m...

Comrade Betty,

Though you are wise to criticise the decadent Darwin, of whom Uncle Joe Stalin sternly disapproved, you would do well to exempt Comrade Lysenko from your blanket denouncement.

Whaa...?

Premier Betty wrote:Well why not a monkey then, with all the evolutionists arround they would say that it was the closest thing to sending a human up there.

The U.S.S.R. actually were afraid that if they sent a monkey, the monkey would evolve rapidly by the Sun's radiation while in Sputnik 2. Then the monkey would have the smarts to use the still-attached rockets to propel the ship to the Americans. And they couldn't allow that could they?

Comrade Laika,

I have bought all your CDs performed with the Cosmonauts (http://www.laikaandthecosmonauts.com/), but I do have a few questions:

1) What percentage of your royalties go the Party?
2) What do you eat when on the road?
3) Is there video footage of the bizarre cosmic radiation event that caused your esophagus to mutate an uncannily human-like set of vocal chords?
4) Have you created any "love puppies" on the road?
5) Finns were ungrateful for the wonderful changes we Soviets brought them. Why do you keep hanging around those guys then?
6) If you find the time, please send me a can or two of your organic non-GM dogfood. We here in Pyongyang would be quite inspired by it!

Looking for something else I stumbled upon this sketch today, made by this guy.

Premier Betty wrote:Well why not a monkey then, with all the evolutionists arround they would say that it was the closest thing to sending a human up there.

Be careful Pinkie really dosent like the racist M-word.....

Macaca?

Premier Betty wrote:Macaca?

Monkey

Premier Betty wrote

Macaca?

LoneRedStar replied:

Monkey

HATECRIME! Quick! Grab the placards and empty five-gallon buckets! We've got some chanting and drumming to do!

Ivan Betinov wrote:Premier Betty wrote

Macaca?

LoneRedStar replied:

Monkey

HATECRIME! Quick! Grab the placards and empty five-gallon buckets! We've got some chanting and drumming to do!

How quick you turn on the hand that gave you your first hat. Truly do you just slosh in to the 5 gallon bucket, and how do you drum exactly

He's psychic. A brain without a body evolves and gains powers so that it may accomplish the tasks it normally couldn't. As opposed to bodies without brains. Those just vote democrat.

[runs away from mob of angry hate crime committer haters]

Ivan Betinov wrote:Premier Betty wrote

Macaca?

LoneRedStar replied:

Monkey

HATECRIME! Quick! Grab the placards and empty five-gallon buckets! We've got some chanting and drumming to do!

One mans hate crime is another mans porno entertainment. Ask the Chairman.

Premier Betty wrote:He's psychic. A brain without a body evolves and gains powers so that it may accomplish the tasks it normally couldn't. As opposed to bodies without brains. Those just vote democrat.

[runs away from mob of angry hate crime committer haters]

So a psychic that goes thump in the night...... Ow Crap i think i just tripped over that bucket. Cleanup on Aisle 5!!

LoneRedStar wrote:

Premier Betty wrote:Macaca?

Monkey

Actually, I checked the date when Betty made that post, and he said it before it became a hate crime to use that word.

By all means should we deplore the word was ever used at all at any point in our long and shameful history, but let it stand as the perfect illustration of why it's so hateful and hurtful to those who hear it and are thus forced to make all sorts of wild associations with it that keep them from having any hope of change they can believe in, and why we should never forget just how hateful and hurtful it is to those who feel hated and hurt by it.

Yes, you see the old post where Betty used that word, do you not feel how it makes you feel? So you should know not to use it.

Still, by your post made this date and quoted above, you have shown that you, LoneRedStar, still do not know, that you're still ignorant, unenlightened, intolerant, narrow-minded, mean-spirited, hateful, bigoted, racist, and certainly voted twice for George W. Bush!

I DENOUNCE YOU AGAIN!

The Macaca has been a hate crime for a long, long time. I probably broke several party rules by sayin...

I plead the 5th!!!!

It is OK to say "Monkey", especially when touching monkeys.

Thank you comrade, maybe we need to re-tune their tin hats

That picture will give me nightmares.

Comrades,

Yesterday, I received this image from the blatant propagandists of the decadent western democracies. They will surely fail at this attempt to address the Dog Gap with a cheap, perverted and mutated space dog of their own.

This is an eye opening story. I did not know of all this. Thank you for showing me the truth.

A picture book about Laika:

Owen Davey's latest book is about Laika the Soviet Spacedog

Dear Laika The Space Dog, Friend of the People,

I await your signal through my tinfoil hat giving the people instructions of how we are to celebrate the 60th anniversary of your flight into space on November 3, 1957, showing the world the superiority of the Soviet system over the Kapitalistic running dogs (no offense meant). Will there be new visual propaganda? New clothing for the proletariat? Double rations of beet vodka? We await your signal.

hat Happened to Laika in Space?