First Earthling in space died 50 years ago
Tomorrow (Nov. 3) marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 2, the second artificial Earth satellite hurled into space and the first to carry a living creature. The unlucky passenger was Laika (Russian for "barker"), a mutt grabbed from a Moscow street, trussed up, fitted with electrodes and packed into a space capsule.
The pup did prove that one could survive the stresses of launch. But it wasn't pretty.
For decades, the Soviets lied about what really happened after liftoff. Laika was portrayed as a hero and a martyr. In fact, the dog struggled mightily to escape as the rocket rattled into orbit, and died only hours later from overheating due to an onboard malfunction. PETA would have had a fit. You can read more about it here. And this Wikipedia link includes a discussion of all the musical outgrowths of Laika's doomed mission. Weird.
