The Soviet Aerospace Center had planned to launch the Brigadier 2 satellite in 1958, but in October 1957, Khrushchev ordered the launch of Brigadier 2 on November 7 as a tribute to the 40th anniversary of October Revolution Day.
”The launch of Brigadier 2 was moved up, and so was the accompanying program to send animals into space. Soviet experts decided to send dogs into space first to experiment on people and to suffer possible death. At that time, the Soviet Union did not have the technology to leave the Earth’s orbit, the capsule can not be recovered, so the dog was stuffed into the capsule even if they can escape the heat of the rocket launch, withstand acceleration and weightlessness and other multiple life and death tests, will eventually be abandoned in the vast universe. Since the Soviet Union began secretly implementing the “Send Animals to Space Program” in 1951, dozens of dogs have died in the space experiments.
Soon after the Soviet cosmonaut was appointed, a stray crossbred bitch was caught on the street outside the Moscow Aeromedical Research Center and given the name Laika. It was identified that Laika was about 3 years old and weighed 6 kg. They caught stray dogs for experiments because they are more resistant to heat and hunger than domestic dogs, making them suitable for space experiments.
Yazdovsky, the founder of Soviet cosmonautics biomedicine, was responsible for training Laika. He described Laika in a monograph years later, saying, “He was quiet and charming.” He took Laika home for a few days before sending her to Traveler 2. In his monograph, he wrote: “I really wanted to be nice to Laika, because he was counting down the days to his life and the cute little guy didn’t know anything yet.” Yazdovsky knew that Laika would die once she was in the air with Voyager 2.
On October 12, 1957, the production of “Travel Companion 2” was completed, and on October 31, Yazdovsky arrived at the Baikonur launch site with Rekha in his hand. At 5:00 on November 3, Yazdovsky and his assistant Jachinko cleaned LAIKA for the last time – brushing and disinfecting it with alcohol. At 5:30 p.m., when Brigadier 2 ignited and lifted off, monitoring showed that LAIKA’s heartbeat began to increase and he became agitated as the rocket’s thrusters reached maximum acceleration, but he was still able to eat. seven hours later, LAIKA showed no signs of life. ……
The Soviet Space Center said after Laika’s death that they had poisoned his food and that he was euthanized when he completed his data transfer. In October 2002, Yazdovsky’s assistant Malashenkov also wrote an article proving that Laika was baked to death in the space capsule.
On April 14, 1958, five months after the flight of “Traveler 2”, the dead Laika burned up in the atmosphere and crashed into …… The Soviet Union called Laika a national hero and pride of mankind and built a statue of “Hero Laika” at the National Cosmonautics Training Center. The statue of “Hero LAIKA” was built at the National Aerospace Training Center. A variety of commemorative stamps, books and cartoons sprang up, but were met with protests from the World Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and animal protection groups, and the British Canine Protection League called on dog owners worldwide to observe a minute of silence for Laika. In that year, the Paris Dog Protection Association built a monument to Laika in granite.
During these years, the idea of animal protectionism sprang up in Russia. In 2008, Russian sculptors built another statue of Laika in the courtyard of the Moscow Space Medical Center, but this one is fundamentally different from the one from half a century ago, warning humans never again to sacrifice the lives of other dogs for their own greed.
