Russians Reveal Early Death of Laika

jonerik writes "Contrary to long-believed Soviet reports that Laika the space dog - the first living animal to be launched into orbit from Earth - lived for a week or so after she was launched into orbit aboard Sputnik 2 in November 1957, CNN is now reporting that Dimitri Malashenkov of the Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow has presented a scientific paper at the World Space Congress in Houston, Texas in which he revealed that Laika actually died a few hours after launch due to thermal insulation problems overheating the cabin interior. Sputnik 2 remained in orbit a total of 162 days, before burning up in the atmosphere on April 14, 1958."

Comments

The dog was gassed.

[selectspec]

The said part is that the dog had a better chance of surving in a leaky space craft than in the old Soviet Union.

Let's face it, if Wolfy had made it home alive he'd have been in a Stalinburger with extra cheese within a fort night.

Re:Makes me sick!

[vstanescu]

Yes, it should have been better to send a human (or even better, a criminal) instead of an animal for that flight, for a lot of reasons: we have enough of them to spare, they will at least know what will happen to them and they are able to speak, informing the scientists what is happening to them.