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- On November 3, 1957, the U.S.S.R. stunned the world with
a space sensation -- the launch of Sputnik 2 with a live dog on-board.
But many details of what happened to the mission have only recently been
revealed.
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- The Space Age had started less than a month before, with
the launch of the first Soviet satellite on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1,
a 40-pound sphere, carried a simple transmitter and was considered very
heavy compared to the U.S. spacecraft under development at the time.
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- Enter Sputnik 2. The Soviet press boasted about the 250-pound
object equipped with a cabin, providing all the necessary life support
for a dog named Laika. Well, almost. The Soviets admitted soon after the
launch that the spacecraft would not return, meaning that the animal was
doomed from the start. Years after Sputnik 2 burned up in the atmosphere,
conflicting scenarios of Laika's death were circulating in the West.
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- Recently, several Russian sources revealed that Laika
survived in orbit for four days and then died when the cabin overheated.
The design of the cabin was derived from the nose sections of experimental
ballistic missiles that carried dogs into the upper atmosphere in short
and relatively slow-speed flights, ending in a parachute landing.
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- With Sputnik 2, the Cold War politics left no time for
designers to develop a life-support system for a long-duration flight,
not to mention to protect a spacecraft for a fiery reentry.
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- Laika's story started soon after the Sputnik 1 triumph,
when Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader at the time, hosted a big reception
for leading rocket designers. Among those present was Sergei Korolev, the
founder of the Soviet space program. At the reception, Khrushchev made
the suggestion that another Sputnik be launched to mark the 40th Anniversary
of the Bolshevik Revolution celebrated on November 7.
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- At the time, Korolev had a sophisticated research satellite
in the works. However, it could not possibly be ready for takeoff before
December 1957. That satellite would later become Sputnik 3. To meet the
November anniversary deadline, an entirely new design for Sputnik 2 emerged.
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- According to various Russian sources, the official decision
to launch Sputnik 2 before November 7 was made on October 10 or 12, 1957.
In any case, Korolev's team had less than four weeks to design and build
the spacecraft.
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- "All traditions developed in rocket technology were
thrown out (during work on the second satellite)," wrote Boris Chertok,
deputy to Sergei Korolev. "The second satellite was created without
preliminary design, or any kind of design." According to Chertok's
memoirs, most elements of the spacecraft were manufactured from sketches,
while engineers moved into production facilities to assist workers on site.
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- The common belief is that Sputnik 2 failed to separate
from its booster. In reality, the satellite was designed to remain attached
to the upper stage of its launcher, so that the rocket's own telemetry
system could be used to transmit data from the spacecraft.
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- The scientists did their best to benefit from this opportunity
created by Cold War politics. Laika's cabin was equipped with a television
camera, along with sensors to measure ambient pressure and temperature,
as well as the canine passenger's blood pressure, breath frequency and
heartbeat. These instruments allowed ground controllers to monitor how
Laika functioned and died in space. Above the dog's cabin, the engineers
mounted a spherical container that was developed for Sputnik 1. It held
a radio transmitter and an instrument to register ultraviolet and x-ray
radiation.
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- After a successful launch, Sputnik 2 exhausted its electrical
batteries after six days in orbit. With all systems dead, the spacecraft
continued circling the Earth until April 14, 1958, when it reentered the
atmosphere after 2,570 orbits.
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- The Sputnik 2 flight exemplified how science was propelled
by Cold War politics -- a trend that would become more pronounced on both
sides of the Atlantic in later years.
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- Although advertised as another example of the superiority
of the Soviet system, Laika's mission also brought a few unintended results.
In the West, Sputnik 2 renewed the debate over the treatment of animals,
while in the U.S.S.R., the flight was widely ridiculed by ordinary citizens
as propaganda.
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- Laika
by Alfred Lehmberg
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/arecibo/46/
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- A hapless female mongrel dog entombed in icy space, Unasked,
so disrespected, yet a credit to the race. She starved to death; her air
ran out; she burned up, but she suffered. She was the one -- the first
in space, surcease not made, or offered.
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- She's just a dog, beneath concern of shiny *honored*
man. She was so completely terrified, and she couldn't understand. Her
butt was shaved -- electrodes placed this side of vivisection, Then blasted
into inky space, bereft of all affection.
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- Laika was the small dog's name I commemorate with verse.
She's the one so chosen, and in space she was the first. Of all the flesh
that ever was from right back to the Cambrian, She's the first to breath
in space -- our very special champion.
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- Forty years and then they chose to honor with a plaque
The sacrifice she made unasked, though it caused her death, in fact. Better
late than never, but 'twould been much better still To long ago have placed
her stone on the highest sun washed hill.
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- Half a year she spun the sky, then to Earth at last,
ablaze. I wonder that some saw her as she burned up in the flames. Perhaps
a child, chance looking up, and seeing shooting stars, Made a wish for
her own puppy, and then thought of candy bars.
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- Lehmberg@snowhill.com
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- "I cleave the heavens, and soar to the infinite.
What others see from afar, I leave far behind me." - Giordano Bruno,
burned at the fundamentalist's stake.
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