MOSCOW (AP) – Just a month after the Soviet Union stunned the world by putting the
first artificial satellite into orbit, it boasted a new victory – a much bigger
satellite carrying a mongrel dog called Laika.
The
mission, 50 years ago Saturday, ended sadly for Laika but helped pave the way
for human flight.
As with
other episodes of the Soviet space program, Laika's mission was hidden under a
veil of secrecy, and only after the collapse of the Soviet Union could the participants tell the
real story behind it.
The
satellite that carried Laika into orbit was built in less than a month in what
was perhaps the world's fastest-prepared space mission ever.
Excited by
the international uproar over the launch of Sputnik on Oct. 4, 1957, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
summoned Sergei Korolyov, the father of the Soviet space program, and ordered
him to come up with "something new" to celebrate the Nov. 7
anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
Khrushchev's
demand was a shock even for Korolyov, whose team had managed to put together
the first Sputnik in less than three months, said Georgy Grechko, a cosmonaut
who started his career as a space engineer.
"We
didn't believe that you would outpace the Americans with your satellite, but
you did it. Now you should launch something new by Nov. 7," Korolyov
quoted Khrushchev telling him, according to Grechko.
Boris Chertok,
Korolyov's right-hand man, said the short notice made it impossible to design a
principally new spacecraft, but there was also little sense in simply repeating
the Sputnik launch.
"Korolyov
rightly feared that this holiday gift could end up in an accident that would
spoil a hard-won victory," Chertok wrote in his memoirs. But they couldn't
argue with Khrushchev, and the decision to conduct the launch was made on Oct.
12.
When
someone on Korolyov's team suggested putting a dog into orbit, he jumped at the
idea.
Little was
known about the impact of space flight on living things, and some believed they
would be unable to survive the launch or the conditions of outer space.
The Soviet Union had experimented with launching
dogs on short suborbital missions during ballistic missile tests, and some of
them survived several such missions. All of them were stray mongrel dogs –
doctors believed they were able to adapt quicker to harsh conditions – and all
were small so they could fit into the tiny capsules.
Just nine
days before the launch, Doctor Vladimir Yazdovsky chose one of them –
2-year-old Laika – for the mission.
Stories
about how she was chosen vary. Some say Laika was chosen for her good looks – a
Soviet space pioneer had to be photogenic. Others say space doctors simply had
a soft spot for Laika's main rival and didn't want to see her die: Since there
was no way to design a re-entry vehicle in time for the launch, the glory of
making space history also meant a certain death.
"Laika
was quiet and charming," Yazdovsky wrote in his book chronicling the story
of Soviet space medicine. He recalled that before heading to the launchpad, he
took the dog home to play with his children.
"I
wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live,"
Yazdovsky said.
Working
round-the-clock, Korolyov and his team combined a capsule that would carry the
dog with basic life-support systems and elements of the first Sputnik. To
simplify the design, they decided not to separate the satellite from the
booster's second stage.
They worked
without blueprints at a pace that was breathtaking even at the time of the
space race and seems utterly impossible by today's standards.
"Now
when we have computers, sophisticated industrial equipment, lasers and other
things, no one is capable of making a new satellite in just one month," Grechko
said in an interview. "Now it would take a month just to start doing the
paperwork. Korolyov told us later that it was the happiest month of his
life."
As a result
of some last-minute technical problems, Laika had to wait for the launch in the
cabin for three days. The temperatures were low, and workers put a hose
connected to a heater into the cockpit to keep her warm.
On Nov. 3, Laika
blasted off into space in Sputnik 2, which weighed 1,118 pounds – a show of
Soviet ability to take big payloads into space.
Sputnik 1
weighed just 184 pounds. The first U.S.
satellite, Explorer 1, launched on Jan. 31, 1958, weighed about 31 pounds.
When Laika
reached orbit, doctors found with relief that her pulse, which had risen on
launch, and her blood pressure were normal. She ate specially prepared food
from a container.
According
to official Soviet reports, the dog was euthanized after a week. Laika's
mission drew a wave of protests from animal protection activists in the West.
It wasn't
until after the Soviet collapse, that some participants in the project told the
true story: Laika indeed was to be euthanized with a programmed injection, but
she apparently died of overheating after only a few hours in orbit. There was
no information to indicate when exactly she died.
"It
was impossible to build reliable life-support and thermal-control systems in
such a short time," Chertok said in his memoirs.
Several
other dogs died in failed launches before the successful space flight – and
safe return to Earth – of Belka and Strelka in August 1960. After a few other
flights with dogs, the Soviet
Union put the world's
first human – Yuri Gagarin – into space on April 12, 1961.
Gagarin is
said to have joked: "I still don't understand who I am: the first human or
the last dog in space."
advertisement
