RIP,
Laika. You were the first animal to orbit the earth. They didn't tell you, but it was never planned to have you make it back to earth. Re-entry technology had not been invented, and 53 years ago, today, you gave your life in the name of Progress.
.
You can read the Wikipedia article about Laika
here. It is doubtful that society - even in Russia - would stand for this today. Although in fairness, I'm hard-pressed to say how we could've gotten our rudimentary knowledge of life during spaceflight without sending an animal first. But jeez, we cooda sent a
cat instead. That would've been okay.
.
For the record, Laika was a three-year-old
(estimated) stray that the Russians picked up off the streets of Moscow.
TRIVIA QUESTION : Why did the Soviets choose to use strays during the early days of their space program?
(Answer in the comments).
You can read the Wikipedia article about Laika here. It is doubtful that society - even in Russia - would stand for this today. Although in fairness, I'm hard-pressed to say how we could've gotten our rudimentary knowledge of life during spaceflight without sending an animal first. But jeez, we cooda sent a cat instead. That would've been okay.
.
For the record, Laika was a three-year-old (estimated) stray that the Russians picked up off the streets of Moscow. TRIVIA QUESTION : Why did the Soviets choose to use strays during the early days of their space program? (Answer in the comments).
The Russians believed that a stray from the streets of Moscow would have a greater tolerance against extreme heat and cold, and so would live a little longer during the one-way flight.
ReplyDeleteIt was not a good time to be a stray dog in Moscow.