A month after the satisfactory first cosmic launch of Sputnik 1, the Soviet space exploration program (organized on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution) continued with the attempt to send a living being into orbit. It was November 3, 1957, exactly 60 years ago, when Sputnik 2 departed from the Baikonur cosmodrome with the little dog Laika, the first living creature to go into space.
The dog Laika, the first living being in space
The dog was three years old and her real name was Kudrjavka (curly in Russian), while Laika meant "little barker". The capsule on which the dog undertook the one-way journey (for the poor animal the possibility of a return to life was not foreseen) was equipped with food for sustenance and with sensors useful for measuring blood pressure, heartbeats. and respiratory rate.
Laika died for various causes, from excessive heat to extreme cold, a few hours after take-off, even if the official version of the time claimed that the dog survived more than four days.
Only the first animal in orbit
The Laika dog was just the first of the many animals that over the years have been sent into space to test the survival skills of a creature off planet Earth. In 1958 it was the turn of the monkeys Able, Miss Baker (pictured) and Gordo, sent on behalf of the United States of America. A trip into the group orbit, on the other hand, was the one organized by the Soviet government in the summer of 1960: traveling aboard the Sputnik 5 were two little dogs, a rabbit, forty-two mice, two rats, flies, plants and mushrooms. Cats also began to be interested in these trips: the first example was in 1963 with the French kitten Félicette.
In those years of cosmic exploration, the Soviet Union was at the center of several controversy over the use of animals for scientific purposes - in addition to Laika, in fact, at least 56 other dogs were sent into space within the Soviet space program inaugurated with the artificial satellite Sputnik 1.
The battle between the stars further excited the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1961 the Soviets struck the blow that seemed to be decisive with the space travel of Yury Gagarin, first man in orbit. It was just an illusion: on July 20, 1969, with Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon, the Americans closed the space dispute.
