55 years ago Laika was launched into space

Exactly 55 years ago, the dog Laika was the first living being in space flight went. It was launched into space on November 3, 1957. at 5:30 MSK on the Soviet ship "Sputnik-2." At the time Laika was about two years old.

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Laika was placed in a kennel space the size of a washing machine. The dog died during the flight - in 5-7 hours after the start. She died of stress and overheating, even though it was assumed that it will live for about a week.

Despite the fact that Laika could not survive the experiment confirmed that a living being could survive the launch into orbit and weightlessness. The first animals safely returned from space flight, have become the dogs Belka and Strelka.

Some of the staff involved in the preparation of Laiki psychologically hard suffered the death of a dog. "By itself, the launch and receive ... information - all very nice. But when you realize that you can not return this Laika, she is killed, and you can not do anything, and that no one, not only me, no one can get it back, because there is no system to return it for a very heavy feeling. Do you know? When I came back from the Baikonur to Moscow, and for a while it was still rejoicing: on the radio, in the newspapers, I went out of town. Do you understand? I wanted some privacy, "- talked about his mental state after launching Laiki Soviet physiologist Oleg Gazenko.

In Moscow, on the territory of the Institute of Military Medicine, which was preparing a space experiment, a monument to Laika. The two-meter monument of a space rocket, which passes into the palm, which stands proudly Laika.

via rbc.ru



We add that the monument to Laika and set in Crete (Greece) at the Museum of Homo Sapiens. There are monuments to Yuri Gagarin, the lost crew of Apollo, Space Shuttle and Unions (only 21 people), as well as the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong.

The press in the Soviet Union did not immediately realized the significance of the event. TASS officially announced the launch of "Sputnik 2" in the same day, but the article was first lists all research equipment and only in the end it was written that the board is a dog named Laika. In the western media as it caused a sensation. Articles express admiration for her and worried at the same time. "The most shaggy, the lonely, the poor dog in the world" - so wrote «The New York Times» in its issue dated November 5, 1957.

Within 7 days of the USSR transmit data about the health of the dog is already dead. Only a week since the launch of the Soviet Union announced that allegedly drugged Laika. It has caused an unprecedented barrage of criticism in Western countries from animal advocates. The Kremlin has received many letters of protest against cruelty to animals, and even sarcastic quotations sent First Secretary of the CPSU Khrushchev into space instead of a dog.



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