“Please forgive us.” These were the words of Russian biologist Adilya Kotovskaya; weeping as she stroked Laika one last time before sending her to space on November 3, 1957.
“I asked her to forgive us and I even cried as I stroked her for the last time,” then-90-year-old Kotovskaya said in a 2017 interview via Science X‘s Phys.org.
At that time, everyone knew that the “first living creature to be launched into Earth orbit” had a miniscule chance of survival.
And so the Soviet artificial satellite Sputnik 2 took off carrying the former street dog, without her knowing that only a miracle could save her; given the limited knowledge and equipment the scientific experts had back then.
Laika only survived a few hours; traveling around the world nine times before a failure in the spacecraft caused it to overheat.
Such malfunction sealed the dog’s fate.
“Those nine orbits of Earth made Laika the world’s first cosmonaut—sacrificed for the sake of the success of future space missions,” Kotovskaya expressed.
Laika’s story
Weighing only 13 pounds, Laika used to live in the streets of Moscow. The experts chose her, along with other candidates, because they believed that stray dogs have more chances of survival than those who had been living within the households as pets.
They also preferred female canines as “The Soviet canine recruiters began their quest with a herd of female stray dogs because females were smaller and apparently more docile.
There were lots of screening processes for the dogs before they eventually chose “Kudryavka” (Little Curly) as Sputnik 2’s dog cosmonaut and “Albina” (White) as backup. Introduced to the public via radio, Kudryavka barked; leading her to get the name of Laika or “barker” in Russian.
It was no secret that Laika was likely bound to face a tragic demise, even as scientists did their best to ensure her safety, food, and space training. And just like Kotovskaya, other experts also prepared for her take off with a heavy heart.
According to the Smithsonian Magazine, one of her keepers, Vladimir Yazdovsky, took the then-three-year-old Laika to his home shortly before her flight.
“I wanted to do something nice for the dog,” he later recalled. “Laika was quiet and charming.”
His child, Prof. Viktor Yazdovsky, even played with Laika when his father brought her home from the Soviet space headquarters before her mission, according to BBC; letting the former stray experience the warmth of home even for a while.
Later, Laika had to face her drastic fate. She died within hours of takeoff from “panic” and “overheating”, while Sputnik 2 continued to orbit the Earth for five months, then burned up when it reentered the atmosphere in April 1958.
“The Russians love dogs,” a Soviet official stressed, as per TIME. “This has been done not for the sake of cruelty but for the benefit of humanity.”
But in 1998, 79-year-old Oleg Gazenko, a leading scientist during the Soviet animals-in-space program, expressed regrets in a press conference, as reported by The Guardian.
“The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of a dog,” the late expert said.
‘No more Laikas’
At the center of Hartsdale Pet Cemetery, the first in the United States, there is a War Dog Memorial honoring dogs that served during World War I and is encircled with tributes to the space dog Laika.
But while everyone considered Laika a hero, more and more people have been pleading to stop involving animals in experiments.
In March 2023, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) even asked for support for its Research Modernization Deal, a plan designed “to phase out hurting and killing animals in cruel and useless experiments”; backing up its advocacy with Laika’s story.
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