The real death of Laika
of Vittorio Zucconi
The animal was sent into orbit on Sputnik in '57. The Russians said they had endured seven days: was not true.
WASHINGTON - The dog that chased the stars have much preferred to continue to chase cats and cyclists on the streets of Moscow, where she had been able to decide, but a dog Laika was not any. He was a soldier, a flag, a bark of battle, a monument to the Soviet Union wanted to build itself with the material of the Cold War, with engines, missiles, ambitions and, above all, the lies of propaganda. Laika, the dog catcher bastard recruited by Khrushchev in the streets of Moscow to be the first living creature sent into orbit, did not die a painless death after a week in the space of orbits, that propaganda had told us then, but a horrible and agonizing death , boxed in the tiny Sputnik, a few hours after launch. His dog heart was crashed by panic and loneliness incomprehensible.
Another perennial power lies in Russia, Soviet, and not just Soviet, comes to light after 45 years, from the confession of one of the scientists of that space program that, among the first beep of Sputnik and Gagarin's trip around the Earth, was be the demonstration of the triumph over the enemy Socialist Capitalist. The proof of the prophecy of Nikita Khrushchev to the West, "in ten years we will bury you."
Laika, Albina and Mushka together with two other little dogs at random among the mongrels in the streets of the capital, was chosen for its docility, its resistance to acceleration in the centrifuge tests of the "Star City" Houston at the gates of Moscow and, damn small, due to its small size. There was not much space for a dog in Sputnik 2 from the total weight of 108 pounds, that carriers Soviets were able to shoot this in orbit in November 1957. But it was tiny and meek, Laika was still a dog and it took time to adapt to that trip.
With his companions was put in a blender spin that pushed the core up to three times the normal rhythm of heart rate, in fear and hard to pump blood around the body crushed by the acceleration of gravity. He says now the Russian scientist, a tendency to suffer from panic, because the heart is then used three times more time than her companions, before returning to normal speed.
Laika and her companions were forced to live in cages and containers smaller and narrow chains from even closer, for successive periods of three weeks and eat only fruit jellies, jelly, which would be put on board, so that they might, little by little, sparingly, to exhaustion and then lick his death.
At the end of the training, if we can call that torture, we see in old photographs, sticking with the nose and dark eyes rightly concerned, by a sort of black tube of toothpaste, the cone which would was fired from Baikonur, closely chained to prevent her to rebel and move into the tube.
Mushka, as well as small, was, for his further misfortune, even the most intelligent. It was served to test the rudimentary instruments on board, an automatic ventilator that was supposed to cool the passenger compartment when, in moments of exposure orbits the sun during the temperature would rise above 20 degrees.
Albina had been shot twice with rockets, but the bullet recovered by parachute, to test the resistance to the launch. But Laika draws the short straw. She was chosen for the glorious event. It was launched. Without knowing that she had not been provided any triumphant return. What would be dead by turning around the Earth. Dr. Dimitri Malashenkov, the specialist who followed her, said yesterday at a conference of space medicine in Houston, the last hours of Laika. The electrocardiography followed by radio signaled an increase in paroxysmal pulse kindled when the engines began to vibrate and the missile rising from the pitch, something that the dog had never tried before. Reached orbital velocity, the fan, according to the legendary Soviet standard of quality control, of course it did not work and temperature in the trap space began to oscillate between extreme heat and cold.
His dog heart began to beat irregularly fibrillation, where the absence of weight suddenly slowed pulse and the fourth orbit, after five hours of torment, the route was mercifully flat. Perhaps it was the temperature to kill her, or the moisture that had accumulated in his pant in that space, or the carbon dioxide that the filters would have to clean up the dish, but that probably did not work properly. The Doctor is not safe.
But anyone familiar with a dog and have seen the eyes of Laika and the bag inside his cage, he knows what the dog is dead, died of fear and loneliness. Stress, if you prefer a more aseptic. Dreaming the streets of Moscow, the herd of stray cats and it would no longer run after, the hand of those people to whom it was certainly fond of him, without knowing what they were getting ready for her. Laika's funeral was long. It went on for 6 months and 2,570 orbits, while the Kremlin was lying on the survival of Laika the space indicated in "more than four days" and America is gnawing in his clumsy pursuit missile that exploded after launch and chimpanzees in Africa that was training the dogs to chase the Russians.
She was cremated on April 8, 1958, when the two-Spuntik lost speed and went back into the atmosphere, wasting away in a last, small bonfire of the vanities of the ideological and human cruelty. Three years later, on April 12th of '61, a human being by courage otherworldly, Yuri Gagarin followed her, knowing he could do the end of the dog that had preceded it and that had been sacrificed for him, by a regime that was men like dogs and therefore dogs like people. Too late to make a company Laika and take a walk among the stars.
(October 29, 2002)
From: The Republic of October 29, 2002. Another perennial power lies in Russia, Soviet, and not just Soviet, comes to light after 45 years, from the confession of one of the scientists of that space program that, among the first beep of Sputnik and Gagarin's trip around the Earth, was be the demonstration of the triumph over the enemy Socialist Capitalist. The proof of the prophecy of Nikita Khrushchev to the West, "in ten years we will bury you."
Laika, Albina and Mushka together with two other little dogs at random among the mongrels in the streets of the capital, was chosen for its docility, its resistance to acceleration in the centrifuge tests of the "Star City" Houston at the gates of Moscow and, damn small, due to its small size. There was not much space for a dog in Sputnik 2 from the total weight of 108 pounds, that carriers Soviets were able to shoot this in orbit in November 1957. But it was tiny and meek, Laika was still a dog and it took time to adapt to that trip.
With his companions was put in a blender spin that pushed the core up to three times the normal rhythm of heart rate, in fear and hard to pump blood around the body crushed by the acceleration of gravity. He says now the Russian scientist, a tendency to suffer from panic, because the heart is then used three times more time than her companions, before returning to normal speed.
Laika and her companions were forced to live in cages and containers smaller and narrow chains from even closer, for successive periods of three weeks and eat only fruit jellies, jelly, which would be put on board, so that they might, little by little, sparingly, to exhaustion and then lick his death.
At the end of the training, if we can call that torture, we see in old photographs, sticking with the nose and dark eyes rightly concerned, by a sort of black tube of toothpaste, the cone which would was fired from Baikonur, closely chained to prevent her to rebel and move into the tube.
Mushka, as well as small, was, for his further misfortune, even the most intelligent. It was served to test the rudimentary instruments on board, an automatic ventilator that was supposed to cool the passenger compartment when, in moments of exposure orbits the sun during the temperature would rise above 20 degrees.
Albina had been shot twice with rockets, but the bullet recovered by parachute, to test the resistance to the launch. But Laika draws the short straw. She was chosen for the glorious event. It was launched. Without knowing that she had not been provided any triumphant return. What would be dead by turning around the Earth. Dr. Dimitri Malashenkov, the specialist who followed her, said yesterday at a conference of space medicine in Houston, the last hours of Laika. The electrocardiography followed by radio signaled an increase in paroxysmal pulse kindled when the engines began to vibrate and the missile rising from the pitch, something that the dog had never tried before. Reached orbital velocity, the fan, according to the legendary Soviet standard of quality control, of course it did not work and temperature in the trap space began to oscillate between extreme heat and cold.
His dog heart began to beat irregularly fibrillation, where the absence of weight suddenly slowed pulse and the fourth orbit, after five hours of torment, the route was mercifully flat. Perhaps it was the temperature to kill her, or the moisture that had accumulated in his pant in that space, or the carbon dioxide that the filters would have to clean up the dish, but that probably did not work properly. The Doctor is not safe.
But anyone familiar with a dog and have seen the eyes of Laika and the bag inside his cage, he knows what the dog is dead, died of fear and loneliness. Stress, if you prefer a more aseptic. Dreaming the streets of Moscow, the herd of stray cats and it would no longer run after, the hand of those people to whom it was certainly fond of him, without knowing what they were getting ready for her. Laika's funeral was long. It went on for 6 months and 2,570 orbits, while the Kremlin was lying on the survival of Laika the space indicated in "more than four days" and America is gnawing in his clumsy pursuit missile that exploded after launch and chimpanzees in Africa that was training the dogs to chase the Russians.
She was cremated on April 8, 1958, when the two-Spuntik lost speed and went back into the atmosphere, wasting away in a last, small bonfire of the vanities of the ideological and human cruelty. Three years later, on April 12th of '61, a human being by courage otherworldly, Yuri Gagarin followed her, knowing he could do the end of the dog that had preceded it and that had been sacrificed for him, by a regime that was men like dogs and therefore dogs like people. Too late to make a company Laika and take a walk among the stars.
(October 29, 2002)
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