Scientist Recalls Training Dog Laika For Space

    • admin@nie
    • Publish Date: Nov 3 2017 1:34PM
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    • Updated Date: Nov 3 2017 1:34PM
Scientist Recalls Training Dog Laika For Space

"I asked her to forgive us and I even cried as I stroked her for the last time," says 90-year-old Russian biologist Adilya Kotovskaya, recalling the day she bid farewell to her charge Laika. The former street dog was about to make history as the first living creature to orbit the earth, blasting off on a one-way journey.

The Soviet Union sent Laika up to space in a satellite on November 3, 1957 -- sixty years ago. It followed the first ever Sputnik satellite launch earlier that year. But things did not go exactly to plan and the dog was only able to survive for a few hours, flying around the Earth nine times.

"Those nine orbits of Earth made Laika the world's first cosmonaut -- sacrificed for the sake of the success of future space missions," says Kotovskaya, who remains proud of her pioneering work as a scientist training Laika and other early space animals.

For Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Laika's voyage was yet another space feat to discomfit the Americans. In a well-timed propaganda effort, it fell just before the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution on November 7. Kotovskaya recalls that before Laika, several dogs had been blasted up into suborbital space for brief periods of a few minutes "to check that it was possible to survive in weightlessness."

"Now it was time to send one into space," says Kotovskaya, who turned 90 in October but still heads a laboratory at Moscow's Institute of Biomedical Problems. The institute specialises in space science and simulated a flight to Mars in 2010 by making volunteers spend 520 days in isolation.

To get dogs accustomed to the idea of space travel inside a pressurised capsule just 80 centimetres (31 inches) long, Kotovskaya gradually moved them into smaller and smaller cages.


Do You Recall Any Other Animal Who Was Sent To Space? 

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Comments

Nandagopal M Soundarya School

Yes many had been sent into space like fruit flies being the first and followed by chimps and rats and even bears.But laika is the most famous for she sacrificed for the sake of humanity

mark aruliah SBOA SCHOOL & JUNIOR COLLEGE

Housecats were a bit late to the space party compared to some other animals the French first sent a cat into space on October 18, 1963.While most of the animals sent into space were intended to be later retrieved, Laika was never meant to survive. After a set period of days, they would feed her a meal of poisoned food to avoid the agonizing fate of starving to death. However, the craft took on excessive heat, and Laika’s vital signs ceased between five and seven hours after the launch.

Nidhi MAYUR PUBLIC SCHOOL(PATPATGANJ)

To remember Laila, it''s very heart shaking to say that the first dog who was sent to space suffered greater stress during launch and the start of weightlessness than she did during ground simulations of the flight. Since, many had been sent into space But laika is the most famous for she sacrificed for the sake of humanity.

Roma Ramcoumar Bethel Mat Hr Sec School

I think Adilya must be feeling proud .This is a very good reason for the Russian government to feel proud .

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