laika

Laika was a stray dog from Moscow selected for the Soviet space program to test the survivability of living organisms in space. From a pool of candidates, she was chosen for her small size and calm demeanor. She was trained for the mission and placed in a small cabin in the Sputnik 2 spacecraft, which carried life-support equipment, scientific experiments, and telemetry.

Sputnik 2 launched on November 3, 1957, carrying Laika in orbit around Earth and achieving the first long-duration flight by a living animal. According to official accounts, Laika died within hours of launch due to overheating caused by a failure of the spacecraft's thermal control system; the mission did not include a means of returning her. The craft continued to orbit for about five months before reentering Earth's atmosphere and burning up on April 14, 1958.

The mission demonstrated that a living passenger could survive in space for a period and provided data on physiological responses to spaceflight. It also raised ethical questions about the use of animals in space research and influenced later debates around animal welfare and the design of human spaceflight programs. Laika's legacy remains controversial: she is remembered as a pioneer of space exploration and as a symbol of the ethical issues surrounding animal testing.

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