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Remembering Laika, Space Dog and Soviet Hero
- richardknop 9y agoA great achievement. I remember reading about Laika when I was a child. I was into astronauts (or cosmonauts) a lot when I was a child, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut for NASA. I read all books related to space travel and astronautics at the time.
- Morphior 9y agoI still want to be involved in space travel sometime. Not just a dream I had as a child, personally.
- strictnein 9y agoRandom, but she's also the central character in Trentemøller's video for Moan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZPxvO1ftY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZPxvO1ftY
- dmlorenzetti 9y agoFor cultural references, in my opinion you can't beat Hallstrom/Jonsson's "My Life as a Dog", whose main character ponders the fate of Laika while his own life undergoes traumatic changes. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_life_as_a_dog/ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_life_as_a_dog/
- protomikron 9y agoHa, I always think about this song when I read about Laika. :) A sad but wonderful tune and tribute to her.
- dmlorenzetti 9y agoFor those in the SF Bay area, the Chabot space center has a lot of old Soviet space hardware -- including a training capsule like the one in the picture at the top of the article.
- Rebelgecko 9y agoThe Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City has a small exhibit on Soviet space dogs. It's one of the more grounded parts of the "museum"
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sctb 9y agoI know it's always tempting to generalize, but we have more to learn here if we cleave to the subject and not whatever we have handy in mind tagged with the keyword ‘Russia’.
- sushisource 9y agoI did not need to be tearing up at work today :(
- jt93 9y agoThis story really got to me, too. :(
- grasshopperpurp 9y agoIf something like this makes me tear up, which this did, I usually find that I needed it.
- beat 9y agoAdding to the cultural references... Jonathan Coulton wrote a superb song about Laika called "Space Doggity". The cage is very small, a tiny silver ball that makes you a hero the moment you step inside. The world is watching you, what you're about to do will live on forever, even though you'll be dead and gone, buckle up we're about to turn the engines on. Hello from Sputnik 2, I am receiving you. Thanks for the the dog food, I'm somewhere above you now. Guess what, Maloshenkov? I took my collar off I'm holding my own leash, walking myself outside this door. I don't think I want to be a good dog anymore. Now I'm floating free, and the moon's with me and it's bright enough to light the dark. And it's so high up here, and the stars so clear, Are they close enough? Will they hear me bark from here? Hello to Sputnik 2, I think we're losing you, Your lifesigns are fading, I can't really say that we're surprised. It's a shame, there's always something that gets compromised Now I'm floating free, and the moon's with me and it's bright enough to light the dark. And it's so high up here, and the stars so clear Are they close enough? Will they hear me bark from here?
- dsnuh 9y agoThere is also "Laika" by Arcade Fire. Not necessarily about the dog, but the only other song I can think of that even mentions Laika. https://youtu.be/C4EmXN9xvdE https://youtu.be/C4EmXN9xvdE
- throw_away 9y agoAlso Phil Knight's film studio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika_(company) which made Coraline and Kubo.
- deadhead 9y agoThere's also "Laika" by Moxy Früvous, referring to the dog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlG-kpzMQIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlG-kpzMQIw
- geephroh 9y agoAnd Margaret Fiedler's mid-90s trip-kraut post-rock band, Laika. Their '95 debut album, Silver Apples of the Moon, holds up pretty well.
- cgh 9y agoLaika is a character in The Manhattan Projects, a great comic from Image. It's written by Robert Kirkman, a co-creator of The Walking Dead. https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/the-manhattan-projects https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/the-manhattan-projects
- krrrh 9y agoIf you are in the LA area the Museum of Jurassic Technology is worth visiting for, among other reasons, the room dedicated to the dogs of the Soviet space program. It features paintings and bios of 5 dogs who were involved in the space program. http://www.mjt.org/recentaddtions/creatures.html http://www.mjt.org/recentaddtions/creatures.html Edit: Some info about and images of the paintings here: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-painter-ma-peers-soviet-space-dogs-20151223-column.html http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-...
- jjxw 9y agoI'll enthusiastically second the recommendation. I won't ruin too much, but their policy of not allowing mobile phones while you are in the museum to prevent you from searching anything up really helps to preserve the atmosphere.
- kizzy55 9y agoI remember reading about Laika when I was a child. Growing up when the space race was really big I remember both countries us and the Russians sending up animals to test how they would react in space before sending up a human.
- Amorymeltzer 9y agoThe author of this piece, Alex Wellerstein, is absolutely fantastic on the history of the Nuclear bomb, and I cannot recommend his blog enough: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com His twitter is also worth a follow: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com
- DanCarvajal 9y agoI fucking cried during her episode in Space Dandy.
- vermontdevil 9y agoHere's some more in detail about Laika: https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/laika-declassified-180967077/ https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/laika-declassified-...
- liberte82 9y agoI remember reading about Laika as a kid and how they sent up the dog in space and just let it die up there. It made me feel so bad and still does today. :(
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- amelius 9y agoYes, but there are worse things happening to animals even as we speak, and for less noble purposes.
- caio1982 9y agoDon't "yes, but" this, folks. The parent comment was very specific, focused, why not just ponder it?
- nasredin 9y agoThank you our furry cosmonauts for pioneering a new frontier for us shitty ungrateful humans.
- shell_scripter 9y ago"Tut, tut, tut... let's not change the subject now. We're dehumanizing Rus-- ahem, Soviets here in our Two Minutes of Hate. These are evil, evil people who killed an innocent dog and we should all hate them, even if we ourselves are killing animals for less as we speak."
- Houshalter 9y agoSo what? People can't feel emotions towards abstract statistics. I'm sure if I could see every animal being abused world wide I would probably have a mental breakdown.
- dgut 9y agoSure, but if A is worse, doesn't mean B is good.
- Theodores 9y agoStalin had a saying, I paraphrase: One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. I think the reaction to Laika's demise illustrated this. The exact quantity of dogs 'put to sleep' in 1964 in the USA is not known. However, I am sure that many thousands were 'put to sleep' every single day, with more than a million dogs euthanised in the USA over the year because that is what happens. Incidentally, the last shuttle disaster (Challenger, 2003) was bad news for 13 rats, eight garden orb weaver spiders, five silkworms and three cocoons, four Medaka fish eggs, three carpenter bees, 15 harvester ants and an assortment of fish. Plus the human crew. I am sure all of the animals all had names. There was no mass outpouring of emotion though or letters to the New York Times saying how cruel it was to put them on the Space Shuttle given the likeliness of it going badly wrong.
- tim333 9y agoIt was still sad and bit unnecessary though. Stalin wasn't really known for his ethics.
- jotm 9y agoDid you miss the part about strays literally being killed off everyday (then and today for that matter)? How is sending a dog to space unnecessary by any means compared to that...
- tim333 9y agoUnnecessary in that the Americans were able to do moon landings without leaving any dogs in orbit.
- dominotw 9y ago>Stalin had a saying, I paraphrase: > One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. I don't think there is ever a record of him saying this.
- enlightenedfool 9y agoHumans are funny in a way. Mourn and get emotional about dogs and pets and mercilessly slaughter chicken, cows and pigs everyday.
- Avery3R 9y agoAnyone have a link without a paywall?
- posnet 9y agoYou can see taxidermied Belka and Strelka at the Moscow space museum. A bit morbid, but they are front and center as parts of the soviet space program.
- peckrob 9y agoSomewhat related, Miss Baker [0] was one of the first two animals launched by the United States into space and recovered alive. After her flight and some time in Florida, she lived at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama until her death. She was a "star" there, routinely receiving fan mail from kids around the country. When she died in 1984, she was buried in front of the museum. You walk right by her grave on the way in. People often leave bananas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Baker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Baker
- boggio 9y agoJust read the wiki page for Korolev and damn.. that man's life was a tragedy. Somehow he managed to put everything behind him and literally kick-start the space race and achieve all the Soviet first's in space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev
- riku_iki 9y agoWhy nobody's remembering Albert II - the first animal reached the space? He even doesn't have wiki article..
- pavel_lishin 9y agoCan you enlighten us?
- riku_iki 9y agoAlbert was followed by Albert II who survived the V-2 flight but died on impact on June 14, 1949, after a parachute failure.[2] Albert II became the first monkey and first primate in space as his flight reached 134 km (83 mi) - past the Kármán line of 100 km taken to designate the beginning of space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeys_and_apes_in_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeys_and_apes_in_space
- jotm 9y agoSecrecy of experiments, plus lots of (ex) Nazis. Nobody likes them Nazis. Plus it was a monkey. Dogs are universally loved.