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This is one of the images from my previous Laika Flash... was rather happy with it, so I thought I'd upload it as an image as well.
I couldn't find any photos of Albina or Mushka, unfortunately... although the one to the right might be Mushka, it's also possible that it's one of the famous Belka and Strelka (or possibly one of Veterok and Ugolyok, who have the record of longest space flight among dogs).
All of the dogs were Moscow strays, because they were thought to be more hardened than a house-bred dog.
Albina made one sub-orbital flight (with Tsyganka) where both were ejected out of their capsule at an altitude of 85 km and landed safely.
Mushka spent a day in orbit (together with Pchyolka and a few other animals and plants). Their spacecraft disintegrated during re-entry due to a navigation error and they all died. Mushka didn't fly on Sputnik 2 because she refused to eat properly.
Laika went on Sputnik 2. Due to political pressure they didn't have time to build a craft able withstand re-entry (or sustain her long enough for re-entry)* and Laika was planned to be euthanised by food poisoning before oxygen ran out (to my knowledge, this was the only flight were they weren't trying to get the dog back to Earth alive). Due to a technical error the cabin temperature rose to 40 degrees C and Laika likely died within 5-7 hours of her flight from overheating.
One of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children some time before the launch. "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live." - Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky
*= Correction, the craft might have been able to withstand re-entry, but they didn't have time to plan or calculate the re-entry.
I couldn't find any photos of Albina or Mushka, unfortunately... although the one to the right might be Mushka, it's also possible that it's one of the famous Belka and Strelka (or possibly one of Veterok and Ugolyok, who have the record of longest space flight among dogs).
All of the dogs were Moscow strays, because they were thought to be more hardened than a house-bred dog.
Albina made one sub-orbital flight (with Tsyganka) where both were ejected out of their capsule at an altitude of 85 km and landed safely.
Mushka spent a day in orbit (together with Pchyolka and a few other animals and plants). Their spacecraft disintegrated during re-entry due to a navigation error and they all died. Mushka didn't fly on Sputnik 2 because she refused to eat properly.
Laika went on Sputnik 2. Due to political pressure they didn't have time to build a craft able withstand re-entry (or sustain her long enough for re-entry)* and Laika was planned to be euthanised by food poisoning before oxygen ran out (to my knowledge, this was the only flight were they weren't trying to get the dog back to Earth alive). Due to a technical error the cabin temperature rose to 40 degrees C and Laika likely died within 5-7 hours of her flight from overheating.
One of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children some time before the launch. "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live." - Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky
*= Correction, the craft might have been able to withstand re-entry, but they didn't have time to plan or calculate the re-entry.
Category Artwork (Digital) / General Furry Art
Species Dog (Other)
Size 1280 x 835px
File Size 700.6 kB
Thank you! The initial idea was just a photo like this (zooming in slowly) and music. I liked the idea of portraying Laika and the others as Soviet Air Force pilots, like Gagarin. As I performed the song however, the image of Laika dead in the cabin/cockpit came into my head (which naturaly lead to the shot of Earth). Anyway, I'm glad you liked it.
Not sure if you're joking or not, since I'm very tired (so I apologize beforehand if this post is too serious :) ). The whole space race was about getting a man to the Moon and back to Earth alive. Anything less than that was a failure in the eyes of the enemy, and the world. The only mission where the Soviets didn't plan to bring the dog back home alive was Sputnik-2 (with Laika as the single passanger). The reason for this was that the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (bolstered by the success of the unmanned Sputnik 1) wanted a spacecraft launched on November 7, 1957, the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. They had to design and build Sputnik-2 from scratch in four weeks.
Before this Soviet had already launched several sub-orbit spacecrafts with dogs, all of them with planned re-entries for the dogs and the vast majority of these missions were successful (meaning the dogs survived). After Sputnik-2 and Laika they launched a few more spacecrafts into orbit with dogs and I think only one of these missions failed, the one where Mushka and Pchyolka died.
That the Soviets would seriously plan to send cosmonauts into space to die sounds ridiculous, because a dead man can't come back and be on TV, or tour the world. That was what it was about. PR. A dead cosmonaut would have been a terrible blow for Soviet. Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space and to orbit Earth was even grounded after his first mission because they didn't want to lose him.
This is a quote from one of the scientists who worked on the Sputnik-2 mission: "Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't have done it... We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog."
Finally I would like to present you with these numbers:
- Eighteen astronauts have lost their lives during four spaceflight missions. By nationality, they are 12 Americans, four Russians (Soviet Union), one Indian, and one Israeli. (In the history of mankind)
- Eleven people have lost their lives training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.
Before this Soviet had already launched several sub-orbit spacecrafts with dogs, all of them with planned re-entries for the dogs and the vast majority of these missions were successful (meaning the dogs survived). After Sputnik-2 and Laika they launched a few more spacecrafts into orbit with dogs and I think only one of these missions failed, the one where Mushka and Pchyolka died.
That the Soviets would seriously plan to send cosmonauts into space to die sounds ridiculous, because a dead man can't come back and be on TV, or tour the world. That was what it was about. PR. A dead cosmonaut would have been a terrible blow for Soviet. Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space and to orbit Earth was even grounded after his first mission because they didn't want to lose him.
This is a quote from one of the scientists who worked on the Sputnik-2 mission: "Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't have done it... We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog."
Finally I would like to present you with these numbers:
- Eighteen astronauts have lost their lives during four spaceflight missions. By nationality, they are 12 Americans, four Russians (Soviet Union), one Indian, and one Israeli. (In the history of mankind)
- Eleven people have lost their lives training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.
I probably should have not said their cosmonauts as if i meant all but I read on somewhere about a cosmonaut crew lost in space and couldn't reach the soviet space command. There were stories of a transmission that was picked up of a dying gasp of a cosmonaut and one time a transmission from i think a female cosmonaut that was trying to radio for help.
If you took offense to what i have said on the previous comment forgive me.
If you took offense to what i have said on the previous comment forgive me.
No, sorry... no offense :) , I'm just very geeky/enthusiastic about the subject hehe.
Some of those stories are from a radio tower (I believe) in Italy, and are almost certainly hoaxes. The woman for example spoke broken russian with an accent, plus didn't follow any of the russian communications protocols (not to mention that radio communication during re-entry is impossible). The cosmonauts lost in space is really flawed. The story goes that they deorbited and went into outer space, which is pretty impossible because they'd need massive power to deorbit, which the Soviet rockets during that time didn't have... the only way you can accidentally go (without using rockets/propellant) when in orbit is down (which is fatal enough). The whole thing is made worse by the fact that one of these hoaxes (around 1996 I believe) was later to be revealed to be an elaborate art installation. The installation art was exhibited at different galleries after the artist admitted the hoax, but a magazine in Mexico failed to notice this and ran an article about it as if it was the truth. The russians also sent unmanned (some with dogs) crafts into sub-orbital space, carrying a human dummy with prerecorded messages to test the radios.
That they would send humans into orbit without a re-entry plan I find implausible (it's just too expensive... the crafts where probably the most expensive of its time and educating a cosmonaut just as expensive, not to mention that there's no gain in it). There might've been accidents that were covered up, but not at that scale, you know? I think a lot of it is conspiracy theories, like the "fake moonlanding".
Some of those stories are from a radio tower (I believe) in Italy, and are almost certainly hoaxes. The woman for example spoke broken russian with an accent, plus didn't follow any of the russian communications protocols (not to mention that radio communication during re-entry is impossible). The cosmonauts lost in space is really flawed. The story goes that they deorbited and went into outer space, which is pretty impossible because they'd need massive power to deorbit, which the Soviet rockets during that time didn't have... the only way you can accidentally go (without using rockets/propellant) when in orbit is down (which is fatal enough). The whole thing is made worse by the fact that one of these hoaxes (around 1996 I believe) was later to be revealed to be an elaborate art installation. The installation art was exhibited at different galleries after the artist admitted the hoax, but a magazine in Mexico failed to notice this and ran an article about it as if it was the truth. The russians also sent unmanned (some with dogs) crafts into sub-orbital space, carrying a human dummy with prerecorded messages to test the radios.
That they would send humans into orbit without a re-entry plan I find implausible (it's just too expensive... the crafts where probably the most expensive of its time and educating a cosmonaut just as expensive, not to mention that there's no gain in it). There might've been accidents that were covered up, but not at that scale, you know? I think a lot of it is conspiracy theories, like the "fake moonlanding".
Ahh. well that makes alot of sense there. I myself wouldnt have caught the broken Russian part because I dont know Russian except for a couple words.
Anyways,your work on this picture is fantastic and I agree how unfortunate it is how not all the dogs could have survived.Specially how tragic the way Laika had died while in space.
Anyways,your work on this picture is fantastic and I agree how unfortunate it is how not all the dogs could have survived.Specially how tragic the way Laika had died while in space.
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