Dogs astronauts: four-legged heroes of the twentieth century. Animals in space

The first dogs flew on rockets to different heights. But this was not really a "space" flight - because the rocket was launched vertically, reached a specified height and immediately fell back. Therefore, the first test dogs were not "astronauts", but "stratonauts"!

According to the plan it was planned to conduct six such launches. Not everything went well. For example, dogs Desic and his partner Fox died during the second flight. As a result of the vibrations, something broke in the barorele (a relay triggered at a certain altitude) and it did not introduce a parachute system. The container crashed when it struck the ground. General Designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was very sad.

That summer, four dogs died. The imperfection of technology destroyed them. It's a pity - good, nice dogs. What is there to do? After all, it was necessary to pass this stage. Not people take the risk. By killing, the dogs saved human lives. For this Academician Pavlov put a monument to them. Those who perished in his laboratories. And this - the scouts of the stratosphere. And the future, who will not return from outer space ...

Happened on the range of curiosities. The Bold did not justify the nickname: he managed to open the cage and fled to the steppe. They searched for him, did not find him and decided to urgently prepare a replacement for him, but then he himself came with "guilt". Before the last launch, literally in a matter of hours before the start, Horn escaped and ran away. Everyone was in complete panic, but suddenly it dawned: Ziba - Zapiskogo Vanished Bobik - was put into the rocket. But in fact, he was not any spare, but a regular street dog, he did not think about any flight to the stratosphere, he did not know the trainings, he was such an accidental darling: he flew and basta! And after all perfectly flied, everyone praised him later, and caressed, and fed different yummy. In this forced experiment, its meaning has opened: it means that an unprepared dog can cope with all these stresses without much difficulty ...

The 1951 starts were the beginning of an extensive multi-year program. Along with the dogs, mice, rats, guinea pigs, flies, fruit flies, bacteria, phages, and tissue preparations were used in experiments. In addition, mushrooms, seeds and sprouts of wheat, peas, corn, onions and other plants.

As for dogs, in 1953-1956 they flew in specially designed spacesuits and ejected them at an altitude of about 80 kilometers. At the same time, the design of rocket booths was improved, the height of the rocket rises: from 100 kilometers to 200 and above - to 450 kilimeters above the Earth!

It has become more or less clear that noise and vibration lie within the limits of completely tolerable, especially if they are measured in just a few minutes during the operation, that the problem of overloads is also solved. But the weightlessness ... The duration of weightlessness during rocket launches to high altitudes has already reached 9 minutes. However, in the space flight, the account will go no longer for minutes, but for hours and days (today - months, tomorrow - years, the day after tomorrow - decades). What is it about prolonged weightlessness? Vertical starts could not answer this question. Therefore, the biosatellite with the dog-cosmonaut was planned by Korolev among the very first.

Meanwhile, the Institute of Aviation Medicine ended about a year of work on the special training of animal cosmonauts. Out of ten dogs, three were chosen, very similar to each other: Albina, Laika and Mukhu. Albina had already flown twice with the "stratoon" on the rocket, and honestly served the science. She had funny puppies. Albina was sorry to run. However, all of them were sorry: the dog was on a true death, because the mechanism of return to Earth from space flight has not yet been invented - the dog was launched not on a controlled spacecraft, but on an uncontrollable satellite.

We decided, in the end, that Laika would fly, and Albina would be like her backup. The fly was listed as a "technological dog". It tested the equipment, the work of various systems. All these dogs came to the institute from a nursery in which homeless animals were collected. Laika, who became the most famous dog in history, was also a street vagabond. The institute noticed that these outcasts of dog society are more intelligent and unpretentious than other dogs and are better trained, because they are able to appreciate human kindness.

Laika was a nice little dog, "recalled academician Yazdovsky. - Quiet, very calm. Before I left for the launch site, I once brought her home, showed the children. They played with her. I wanted to do something nice for the dog. After all, she did not have much time left to live ...

Before the departure to the cosmodrome, the dogs were operated on. From the sensors of the respiratory rate on the ribs, the wires under the skin went to the withers and out there. The pulse and blood pressure were recorded from the carotid artery.

Training of dogs continued at the cosmodrome literally until the day of the launch. For several hours every day they were put in a container. The dogs sat quietly. They have long been familiar with the trough, which was a kind of machine-gun belt, composed of small troughs with a jelly-like high-calorie food. In each trough was the daily diet. The food reserve was calculated for twenty days. They were not burdened by tight-fitting body suits, which was held by the urinal. Fixing chains that are attached to the overalls and walls of the container, limited freedom of movement, but allowed to stand, sit, lie and even move slightly forward-back.

On the morning of October 31, Laika was preparing to board a satellite, rubbing the skin with diluted alcohol, the electrodes on the withers were lubricated again with iodine. The dog lay quietly on the white table, stretching forward front legs and raising its head, similar to sharply dogs from ancient Egyptian bas-reliefs.

In the middle of the day, Laika was seated in a container, and about one in the morning the container was lifted onto a rocket. The doctors did not leave the dog for a minute. It was already a deep autumn, and it was cold. To Lajka have stretched a hose with warm air from the ground conditioner. Then the hose was removed: it was necessary to close the hatch. However, shortly before the start, the container was depressurized for a minute, and they sprinkled Laika with water. Water came into the food, but it seemed to everyone that the dog wants to drink. Just drink ordinary water.

On November 3, 1957, a satellite with Laika aboard went into space. Telemetry reported that the overload of the start pressed the dog to the container tray, but it did not twitch. The pulse and respiratory rate increased three-fold, but the electrocardiograms did not show any pathology in the work of the heart. Then everything began to come back to normal. In zero gravity, the dog felt normal, the doctors noted "moderate motor activity". Joyous scientists reported to the State Commission: "I'm alive! Victory!"

Yes. After a cursory study of the blog search and Russian pediviki, it became clear that the history of "phantom astronauts" or even hysterics about the Mericans on the Moon (my personal opinion was flying, certainly) are known to every second, but to name at least a dozen dogs from which everything began, very few. Nevertheless, the history of the first space detachment is amazing, and I think that many are interested in it.

Fine Squirrel and Arrow were not the first, of course. Was not the first and for some reason less known Laika, whose fate set before the parents of the Soviet period a difficult problem: how to explain to children what became of the dog? The history of Soviet dog cosmonautics began back in the post-war years, with the launch of a biomedical space program.

The first living creature was cleverer than the flies sent to the stratosphere by the Americans back in the late forties, they were rhesus monkeys, and these starts ended, as a rule, tragically. Yuri Nikulin told how at about the same time in the circus on Tsvetnoy appeared a well-known trainer of monkeys Capellini. After one of the speeches, he was called aside by people with a seal of secrecy on their faces, and talked for a long time about the training of monkeys. It turned out that all the fantastic tricks of his wards - the result of a very long and difficult training. Even in order to pre-teach the monkeys to injections in the event of a sudden illness, it took several months. In addition, they very badly endure stressful situations: somehow in the port one of the monkeys of the trainer died of horror when he heard the loud whistle of the ship. As a result of conversation from the monkeys it was decided to give up and go their own way. Conditions for the selection of animals were not simple: a small mammal, friendly to people, but not pampered with home education, was required; easy to learn, patient, friendly, and still conscious of loud noise, vibration and other stress factors. And, preferably, the domestic physiology had sufficient experience with such animals. In addition, the beast must be charming - some of them will become a planet-wide hero.

Nothing better than the Moscow mongrel to pick up was simply impossible.

Now it's ridiculous to imagine the harsh officers of the special services who lured dogs through the gateways and selected the most healthy and friendly among them; suitable for the size of loaded into a car and taken away in an unknown direction. At the same time, they preferred not to ask questions about such strange manipulations. The "unknown direction" ended with the backyard of the Dynamo stadium, in the former hotel Mauritania, whose mansion belonged to the Institute of Aeronautical and Space Medicine. All experiments were strictly classified. Dogs, however, did not give a subscription for non-disclosure, and tried to slip away to visit the staff of the institute, where they were more interested in women and the zhrachka than in space flights. In all, the first space detachment had 32 tailed astronauts.

The dogs were taught to carry out commands, to wear clothes, to accustom them to special trays resembling a living compartment of a rocket, to transfer overloads, vibrations and noise. The sensors were implanted, and the carotid artery was taken out into a separate skin flap, so that it was easier to take readings. Already at this stage it became clear that the mongrels - the best choice: they treated all training and experiments quite calmly.

The first launch of dogs on a suborbital flight took place on 22 July 1951 at the Kapustin Yar test site, ten minutes before dawn. Geophysical rocket R-2A with cosmonauts Desik and Gypsy was planned to raise to a height of 110 kilometers. Then the engine turns off, and the rocket inertia goes into space. The head part with the animals separates and begins a free fall to the ground. At an altitude of 7 km, she opened a parachute. The medical plan seemed fantastic, but chief designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev knew about similar experiments by Americans. It was decided to run the dogs in pairs, because the reaction of one animal could be purely individual. Desik with Gypsy was considered the most calm and trained in the group. In the capsule was placed personally by the head of the medical program Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovsky. From his memories:
- An hour before the start I with the mechanic Voronkov climb the stairs to the upper platform of the rocket, opposite the entrance door of the hermetic cabin. All the operations at the top, before the start, were imputed to me as a duty to be engaged at the request of Sergei Pavlovich. At his suggestion, the decision of the State Commission was written: "The final equipment and verification before the start are assigned personally to VI Yazdovsky." We have always tried to check and feel each castle not because we did not trust others, it's just so calmer.

The rocket climbed to a height of 87 kilometers 700 meters, after 15 minutes the parachute sank smoothly near the launch pad. According to the order of the Queen, only physicians were supposed to be the first to arrive at the landing site, but high principals from different ministries and academies agreed with this, and the rule was the first to break it. The first major victory of Russian space medicine took place simultaneously with the cries of the encircled capsule: "Alive! Alive! They bark! ... "The dogs extracted from the capsule ran and patted themselves to the doctors. All were happy, and most of all Sergey Pavlovich Korolev rejoiced.

Employee of the Institute Alexander Dmitrievich Seryapin, who worked with dogs at the training ground, told that when the dogs were released from the cab, everyone was surprised when a solid, seemingly male, chief designer, Korolyov grabbed either Desik or the Gypsy, and joyfully ran around with him around capsules. He personally took the dogs to the enclosure, to which, despite the protests of physicians who studied the consequences of the flight, the real pilgrimage immediately began. The next day the success was noted by the whole range at a picnic, with a shish kebab and two barrels of beer.

Both Desik and Gypsy suffered stress and overloads remarkably - there were no deviations in health and behavior.

Dezik again ascended to the stratosphere in a week, along with a new partner Lisa. At first the tests went fine, but ... the white dome of the parachute in the sky the observers did not see. The system did not work, and the cabin with the dogs broke. So the account was opened for the first victims of astronautics ...

Immediately after the tragedy of the first surviving cosmonaut, Gypsy was suspended from the program. Academician Blagonravov, chairman of the State Commission, took it to him, from whom he lived a long, satisfying and very prolific life - his space puppies were then given as orders, for special merits.

Before the spring of 1961, another 29 launches were carried out in the suborbital flight program. 10 dogs were killed. The parachute systems refused, the life support system failed, the cabs were depressurized, and each catastrophe was perceived by the staff as a personal tragedy. They could no longer treat dogs as experimental material. Practically every physician in the detachment had its own personal favorites, to see their death was incredibly difficult, even tens of years later they remember with tears in their eyes about their losses, but this stage was necessary to pass. Any disaster changed the further test plan, making flights safer not only for dogs, but for humans.

Some of the watchdogs flew two, three, even four times, and, surprisingly, experienced testers calmly transferred the preparations for repeated launches, although it would seem they had to remember the unpleasant sensations after the first flight. The dog the Brave has received the nickname after the fourth successful start.

In the summer of 1954 a new stage of the program was opened: in Tomilino, near Moscow, dogs were prepared for testing emergency evacuation systems in an open airless space. The canvas harness of the cosmonauts was replaced with a parachute suit, and the first dogs were tried by Ryzhik and Fox (the second). It was incomparable in complexity with previous flights. At an altitude of approximately 90 km (I do not have exact data), the catapult pushed the Fox into the open airless space in a dog's space suit. A parachute of a special design was opened, working where the dome does not rest on anything. Ryzhik continued to fall along with the cabin to a height of 45 km, where they were "fired". Exhausted by a fall almost to the speed of sound, the spacesuit slowed down the parachute already at an altitude of seven kilometers. Even now, when you know the result of the experiment, it's a little creepy to watch a video of that flight, where dogs, protected only by a spacesuit, were thrown out to nowhere.

Both landings of the dog were transferred flawlessly. Scientists were happy about the return of the wards, and cosmonauts - a simple earth doctor's sausage.

Ryzhik died two weeks later. The fox, Seryapin's personal favorite, who was rightly guarding him during joint walks, flew the next time in February 1955. When the rocket took off, the rocket moved aside, the stabilizing rudders worked too sharply, and the dog was thrown out of the cab by inertia. Seryapin buried her in the steppe, although this was not allowed: there were no funeral rituals ...

In addition to the tragedies with the "first detachment", frankly curious cases also occurred. During one of the 1951 launches, only dogs from the test crew were on the test range: the rest in Moscow were preparing for the next stage of the tests. When on the eve of the flight the laboratory worker took the dogs out for a walk, the dog named Bold disappeared from the leash and fled to the steppe. The lab technician tried to catch up or lure the fugitive in horror, but the dog blew off like a wind. When they were already going to report to the Queen, having prepared a guilty head, someone had an idea: near the soldiers' canteens a lot of mongrels are spinning all the time! To pick up there similar in suit and size - and in a rocket. A suitable dog was found, sensors were hung on it and actually produced from the Stolovski feedstuff into the cosmonaut, having awarded the nickname ZIB - Replacement of the Vanished Bobik. In turmoil, not even immediately noticed that the dog, in fact, still a puppy. Manipulations with the imposition of sensors, he carried on surprisingly quietly, and although in flight the more experienced team-mate was fussing, having received the rumble, overloads and weightlessness under the full program, the experiment suffered well. The dogs landed safely, and Korolev was very surprised to see in the capsule an unfamiliar dog. About the substitution he was told, and in official reports, the ZIB became a pre-selected, but unprepared participant in the program, who was specifically sent on a flight to test the reaction of an untrained dog.

A brave of wolves came back after the launch ... Zib was no longer involved in further flights: he too was taken to Blagonravov.

In November 1954, in one of the tests of the bailout, a contingency situation arose: a parachute with a dog The baby was blown away by the wind, and the search engines in the prospective area simply could not find it. It turned out that the parachute was cut and dragged by the local shepherd, and the suit itself was difficult to see behind the bumps. The dog lying in it for more than a day first of all rushed to cope with natural needs ...

In early 1956, work began on a new stage of the project - orbital flight. It was necessary to develop a cabin and life support systems in which the animal could live up to thirty days. Cosmonauts-moths temporarily fell into the background: the "space toilet" was made easier for girls. Behind the suit was a tube, and all wastes were absorbed into the bag with a special well-absorbing grass. For feeding, a special machine-conveyor was created, twice a day giving out a new portion of dough-like food with the required amount of liquid. By that time dogs were already climbing to a height of 450 km. It was already clear that overloads, vibrations and noise for dogs were within tolerable limits, but the long-term effect of weightlessness had not yet been studied. For this, an orbital flight was required.

October 4, 1957, as is known, the first artificial satellite of the Earth was launched. Few people know that we could first launch into orbit not a metal ball with antennae, but a ship-laboratory with a dog on board. The first to be found was soulless PS-1 ("the simplest satellite-1", oddly enough), but even then it was clear that the second into orbit the dog would fly. This launch was planned to be declassified, the project participants felt an unprecedented euphoria between the two historical orbital launches, new remarkable specialists were constantly connected to work, who could gather around Korolev. Later he said that this month was the happiest in his life: the dreams of a cosmic romance that had seemed recently insane broke out beyond the stratosphere. It was only one "but" that hindered: Khrushchev demanded the launch of the dog into orbit as soon as possible, and the systems for returning the capsule to Earth were still only being developed. There were several contenders for the orbital flight, and everyone understood that the one whose name will go down in history will not return home.

At first they chose Albina twice flying, but she was sorry: she had funny puppies then. As a result, we stopped at Laika. Albina became her understudy, and on the third candidate, Mukhe, experienced life support systems on Earth.

Laika was a nice little dog, "recalls Yazdovsky," quiet, very calm. " Before leaving for the launch site, I once brought her home, showed the children. They played with her. I wanted to do something nice for the dog. After all, she did not have much time left to live. Now, after so many years, Laika's flight looks very modest, but this is a historical event. And I want to name people who prepared Laika for the flight, who along with thousands of other people wrote the first pages of the history of practical cosmonautics. These names can be found in special journals and books, but most people have never heard them. But this is not fair, you will agree. So, Laika was preparing for the flight: Oleg Gazenko, Abram Genin, Alexander Seryapin, Armen Gurdjan, Natalia Kozakova, Igor Balakhovsky.

Exactly seven days after the start, the dog had to die: the designers came up with a syringe that would make her a lethal injection. In fact, everything turned out much worse. First, because of a malfunction, the rocket with the dog already placed in it stood for three days in the November frost. By order of the Queen, the cabin was heated from the hose with warm air. Shortly before the start, Yazdovsky managed to persuade the Queen to depressurize the container for a minute, and Seryapin watered Laika with water. For some reason it seemed to everyone that the dog wanted to drink. Simple ground water. On November 3, Laika started from the new Tyurat test site, which later would be called Baikonur, and went into orbit.

Information agencies around the world reported news about the state of the dog for a few more days. First, in the orbit, she really felt good, the doctors received valuable information that prolonged weightlessness on the performance of the heart and breathing does not affect. For the townsfolk it was a victory. For doctors - also a personal tragedy. The satellite with the dog was on the sunny side longer than the calculated time, and after a few turns around the Earth Laika was killed by overheating. But the entire accounting week for the media compiled reports on the wonderful state of health of the dog. According to Oleg Georgenko Gazenko, then we not only could not return the satellite home, but also did not work out heat removal systems. Two small fans in the cabin were useless.

The second Soviet satellite with the dead dog was burnt in the atmosphere only in the spring of 1958. Seryapin said that they were required to reproduce the conditions in Laika's cabin later, in the laboratory, the victim of which were two more tailed testers ...

After this flight, two important decisions were made: first, the person in orbit to be in the next few years. Secondly, all unsuccessful starts with dogs to be classified.

On the next satellite ship into orbit, already three years later, the Fox and Chaika dogs had to go.
The designer Boris Evseevich Chertok tells:
- The affectionate red fox was very popular with the Queen. In the MIC, doctors were preparing to try it in the catapulted capsule of the descent vehicle. With engineer Shevelev we discussed another remark on the interconnection of the electrical circuits of the "canine" catapult container and the descent vehicle. The chanterelle did not react at all to our disputes and the general trial turmoil. Korolev approached. I was about to report, but he brushed it aside, without asking doctors, took Lisichka in his arms. She trustingly clung to him. The JV carefully stroked the dog and, not being embarrassed by others, said: "I so want you to return." The Queen's face was unusually sad. He held it for a few more seconds, then handed it to someone in a white coat and, without looking back, slowly wandered into the noisy hall of the MIK.
Together with Korolev and I, we have been in many difficult situations for many years. I felt different, sometimes contradictory, feelings towards him, depending on the circumstances. Memory preserved this episode of the hot day of July 1960. Korolev is stroking the little fox, and for the first time I have such a feeling of pity for him that a lump rolls up to my throat.
Or maybe it was a premonition.

On July 19, 1960, at the 19th second of the flight, the Vostok 8K72 missile with Lisichka and Chaika crashed in the event of an accident of the first stage of the carrier, which for the Queen was a personal tragedy and an incentive to develop a rescue system for the descent vehicle directly from the start. The press about the accident did not appear in the press.

But already the day of August 20, 1960 became triumphal: the world learned the names of Belka and Strelka.

In general, they planned to launch another 17th, but the main oxygen valve was rejected on the carrier and the launch was delayed. On August 19 at 15 hours 44 minutes and 06 seconds the carrier with the ship 1K No. 2 started. It was a real Noah's Ark: in addition to dogs, he raised rats, laboratory mice, fly flies, plant seeds (including - quietly, do not rinse - corn), or even human tissue samples. For 22 hours of flight the ship made 18 turns around the Earth, and the next morning safely landed. This meant that the path to man in space is open. Oleg Gazenko on this issue decided on the unheard of: without coordination with the authorities organized a press conference for his charges in TASS. Ludmila Radkevich, an employee of his laboratory, tells:

Oleg Georgievich and I went to a press conference in the old "Victory", and stood at the traffic light on Mayakovsky. I was sitting behind, and the dogs in my own caftans were in my arms. And we heard a standing ovation: we were applauded from nearby cars. That's when I felt that something really very important had happened, even if strangers so react ...

Leaving the car, Lyudmila, in front of the journalists gathered, hesitated about the threshold with a heel and fell with the dogs in her arms. Helping her to rise French journalists gallantly congratulated the dogs with "another soft landing." And in the evening the dogs and tired but happy doctors were shown on television.

The popularity of the first orbiting cosmonauts was unheard of, and the fantastic charm of Squirrel and especially Arrow played an important role in this. Khrushchev even during his visit to the US even promised to give Jacqueline Kennedy a puppy of one of the dogs. And he kept his promise: a year later, in the White House, there was a poochka near Moscow, Pushinka, the daughter of Strelka. John Kennedy perfectly understood the significance of this gift, and very much hoped not to linger on with the answer: it was then that he was informed that an American missile could lift a man into space. He did not know that the "East", on which the dogs flew, was created for the flight of a Soviet cosmonaut.

Khrushchev felt that the Americans were already stepping on their heels, and demanded that the Queen launch an orbiting man as soon as possible. But Sergei Pavlovich stood on his own: the cosmonaut from the first set who was already preparing will fly only after two successful launches of dogs.

And he was right: the next launch on December 1, 1960 with Bee and Mushka ended in tragedy: the ship deviated from the calculated trajectory. There was a threat of landing the ship in a foreign territory, and the automatic destruction system worked. Nobody wanted to share state secrets ...

The next flight on December 22, too, was unsuccessful. The place in the ship was occupied by the Pearl and Zhulka. Because of the accident of the third stage, the descent vehicle made an emergency landing in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area. Rescuers stole to the snow-covered capsule only three days later, no one especially believed that in such a terrible frost the dogs would survive. What was their joy when they, when raking the snow, heard a dog barking from the capsule! .. All mice, insects and plants died, and both dogs survived. After that, Oleg Georgievich took Zhulka to his room. She lived with him for 12 more years at full content.

In the spring, a series of failures for the testers ended. On March 9 next year, the exact model of the future flight of a man was made by a ship with Chernushka and a mannequin Ivan Ivanych, clad in the same orange diving suit, in which Gagarin would later fly. On March 25, Zvezdochka, also with Ivan Ivanych, successfully conducted the same dress rehearsal of the first manned flight. The dog was originally called Luck, but it was changed from superstition.

At the time of her landing Korolyov already knew the name of the first cosmonaut of the planet.
Gagarin will make a full turn in orbit and fall under the fanfare to Earth in 18 days ...

The participant of experiments Victor Malkin tells:
"All those who survived were protected as the apple of their eye and tried to put them in good hands. For example, Linda, a participant in vertical launches, retired, guarded our garage. The drivers simply adored her! From Chernushka - in memory of her merits - made a scarecrow (it still stands at the Institute of Biomedical Problems). But the luck-asterisk Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovsky for the purpose of propaganda gave to the Moscow zoo, so that visitors could see and rejoice. I remember, there was a huge poster: "Bear Vasya, a wolf Petya and a dog Asterisk - a participant in the flight around the Earth."

I never thought that they were familiar with the work of Newton, and in particular with the law of universal gravitation. And found out about it while watching a film about one of the flights. In the compartment was an unscrewed nut, and in weightlessness she began to fly. You would have seen how surprised the dog was watching! All could not understand: why the nut does not fall. Since then, I'm ready to bet on - the laws of nature are familiar to dogs. And fear, in my opinion, they did not feel. At least, our, space ...

The "dog" program on the Gagarin flight did not end. In February-March 1966, Veterok and Ugolyok dogs spent 22 days in the orbit of the artificial Earth satellite Cosmos-110. Such a prolonged flight of the dog was carried very poorly, but successfully recovered and gave a healthy offspring. Their record cosmonauts station "Salute" will not be beaten until after five years. By the way, Coal was originally called Snezkom, and before the start of the name he was changed for the sake of a better match with the dark suit. His partner before the flight in general was known as Bzdunok because of the corresponding mighty abilities of the body. The Soviet space dog did not have to wear such a name, and the nickname was edited, although everyone knew what kind of "breeze" it was ... The dog in some way predetermined the fate of the Bulgarian cosmonaut Kakalov, who was let into space, but just in case they were renamed in Ivanova.

A total of forty-eight dogs took part in Dogagarin flights.
Twenty of them died.

The journey of the Laika dog-cosmonaut to the Earth's orbit is a key moment in human history. It served as evidence that people can discover new peaks. However, Laika herself was just a dog who did not understand the meaning of her mission. For her, the last weeks of life have become a terrible and incredibly difficult test. In her last moments of life she was frightened and did not understand what was happening to her. The testimony about her flight varies, but one thing is certain - she could return home.

• 1 The first cosmonaut was homeless
• 2 Laika was about to die
• 3 Engineers were rushed to create a spaceship
• 4 The dog spent weeks in an extremely small capsule
• 5 The scientist took Lika home before the flight

• 6 The dog was very frightened before being sent to space
• 7 Her death was horrendous
• 8 The satellite was burnt at the entrance to the dense layers of the atmosphere
• 9 Soon Mukha died too
• 10 We do not know everything

The first cosmonaut was homeless

For the flight, scientists were looking for the mongrel

Before becoming a part of the space program, Laika was homeless. She was a mongrel, wandering around the streets of Moscow.

The Soviet Union was looking for homeless mongrels - like Laika. While the Americans sent monkeys into space, Soviet people thought that it would be easier to work with a dog. There was a whole team to find and catch the mongrels. In their opinion, the harsh life on the street made these dogs strong enough and hardy to withstand flying into space.

Laika was not the first sent into space by a dog. Her predecessor, Albina, flew half orbit and returned to Earth alive.

Another dog, Mushka, was called to test the life support system. Like Lyka, Mushka was a mongrel, but the tests of the space program were too heavy for her. During training, Mushka was so scared that after that she no longer touched her food.

Laika had to die

The death of Laika was predetermined

Unlike Albina, Laika did not return to Earth. The satellite created by the engineers was not equipped for safe entry into the atmosphere. Everyone knew that Laika would not survive the way back. She spent several days in the near-earth orbit, and then was euthanized by means of poison injected into the feed.

Outside the Soviet Union, everyone was outraged by Laika's mission. Britain agitated for the abolition of the operation. The Daily Mirror published an article with the title "The dog will die, and we can not save it." The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals called on people to complain to the Soviet embassy. Other states, in protest, arranged a minute of silence every day at eleven o'clock in the morning.

In the USSR, they did not understand this reaction of Western society. "The Russians love dogs," they said in response. "We did it not for the sake of cruelty, but for the good of humanity."

However, Laika, most likely, was chosen precisely because of the cruelty of the mission. Some argue that initially the choice fell on Albina, but decided to leave it on earth as a sign of respect. She has already done her work. Laika went into space so that Albina could live on.

Engineers were rushed to create a spaceship

Because of the rush, scientists have not thought out the mechanism of the rocket

Lika's death could have been avoided. According to the original plan, she had to return home. In the Soviet Union, it was claimed that the dog will have everything necessary to survive and return from space in safety and integrity.

However, everything has changed through the fault of Nikita Khrushchev. He considered Laika's departure as part of propaganda and wanted the flight to take place as soon as possible. Sputnik 2 was to be ready exactly on the fortieth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, and Khrushchev ordered the engineers to hurry to complete the work in time for an important date.

All plans for the return mission were destroyed. The engineers had only four weeks to create a spacecraft that would send a living creature into orbit. This time was enough to develop the flight conditions - but not the conditions for a safe return.

"We had to forget about all the traditions adopted in rocket technology," says one of the inventors Boris Chertok. "The second satellite was created without preliminary development - and without any development at all."

The dog spent weeks in an extremely small capsule

In Laika's rocket, there was no way to move

Satellite-2 was a little more than a washing machine. Laika did not have enough space even to turn around, and to avoid such an opportunity, it was fixed in one place. She could only sit or lie - and nothing more.

During preparation, Laika and other dogs were placed in ever smaller spaces. She had to hold out in claustrophobic conditions for up to twenty days, and then move into an even more enclosed space.

In such conditions, the dogs had constipation. They could not be cured, even when scientists gave them a laxative. According to scientists, the only way to adapt the dogs for flight into space was to place them in the proper environment. They were kept in capsules until they forgot that they had once been somewhere else.

The scientist took Lika home before the flight

Yazdovsky wanted Lika felt loved

The day before the launch, Vladimir Yazdovsky, MD, took Lika home. For the last month he became the closest person to her. He led a group that found Laik in the street, coached her, and it was he who selected it before the flight into space.

Professor Yazdovsky took her home to introduce his children. On her last day on Earth, he gave her the experience of a home dog with a loving family. "I wanted to do something good for her," says Vladimir Yazdovsky. "She was given so little time to live."

And in the morning Laika was supposed to be in a rocket and go into space - and never return. Yazdovsky took her to the launch pad, and the team said goodbye to the dog.

"After we placed Laika in the rocket and closed the hatch, we kissed her in the nose and wished her a happy journey," says one of the team. "We knew that she would not survive this flight."

The dog was very frightened before being sent to space

In space, Laika had no one to reassure

That day the missile with Laika never started. For the next three days, the dog was on Earth, in a state of grounding in a spaceship. The fault was the failure, which had to be corrected, and all this time Lika was in an extremely cold temperature, without the ability to move.

Scientists have done everything possible to take care of it. The hose from the air conditioner kept Laika warm, and Vladimir Yazdovsky ordered his team to monitor her continuously. Finally, on November 3, 1957, Laika set out on her journey.

As soon as the rocket detached from the Earth and came out into space, Laika panicked. Her heartbeat and breathing were three times higher than normal - a small, frightened little dog tried to understand what was happening to her.

When the forces of gravity ceased to function, Laika began to calm down. For the first time in the history of our planet, a living creature flew in space, surveying the Earth and the stars from the other side of the atmosphere. Her heart slowed, she began to relax, but since then she will no longer come to the state in which she was on Earth.

Her death was horrendous

A ship with a dead Laika on board made thousands of laps

For years after the mission, the Soviet Union claimed that Laika survived on her first day in space. Scientists said that for a few days it was spinning in orbit around the Earth. And then she ate the poisoned food prepared in advance, and died peacefully, flying over our planet.

The truth was hidden until 2002 - while one of the scientists, Dmitry Malashenkov, did not disclose details of the harsh fate that befell Lyka in fact. The dog died seven hours after launch, during its fourth round of the Earth, experiencing excruciating pain.

The temperature control system on the hastily constructed satellite was broken. The temperature in the shuttle kept rising and rising until it reached forty degrees, creating an unbearable stuffiness. Laika, who had barely time to calm down, began to panic again.

On Earth, Laika had coaches who reassured her when she began to worry. In this flight, scientists could only get information about her condition. They watched as Lika's heart began to beat more and more, until it stopped.

The satellite burned at the entrance to the dense layers of the atmosphere

Laika did not return to Earth after her death

Five months later and 2,570 orbits around the Earth, the satellite became for Laika the coffin falling on our planet. He swept across the sky, and people from all over the world watched him - the Americans caused a little panic.

"Shortly after midnight, April 14, 1958, people witnessed signs of UFOs on the eastern coast of the United States," reads one of the reports. "Witnesses spoke of a sparkling white object moving across the sky at incredible speed. According to eyewitnesses, suddenly the object turned red and a few small details fell from it and fell down. "

This UFO was Sputnik-2, and parts were parts of the capsule. Lika and the capsule burned on the way to Earth. The dog's body was burned right in the atmosphere.

Soon died and Mukha

Muhu suffered the fate of her companion

The fly, which was left on Earth as a spare, flew into space a little later, Laika. She was sent in a rocket along with other dogs, guinea pigs, rats, mice, insects and plants - to study the effects of cosmic radiation.

The fly was already halfway to the house. However, during the entrance to the atmosphere, the old missile slowed and began to fail. She lost the trajectory and fell to Earth. Nobody knew where it was supposed to land, and Soviet people were frightened that it might be on the territory of America.

The Soviet Union stated that the missile with the Fly was burnt in the atmosphere. However, in fact there was an explosion on board. Afraid that their secrets will be in enemy territory, Soviet scientists detonated the rocket, thus killing every living creature flying in it.

We do not know everything

Thanks to Laika, the flight of Yuri Gagarin took place

"The more time passes, the more I regret," said Oleg Gazenko, one of the team's scientists. "We should not have done this. We did not know much in order to allow the death of the dog. "

Her journey into space was more symbolic than scientific. It proved that a living being can go into space and survive - and, more importantly, that the USSR can do it first. However, the decision not to return it to Earth tarnished the reputation of the team. One Polish scientist called Laika's death "the greatest loss for science".

Despite this, Laika became a symbol of the flight into space for the whole world. She paved the way for future discoveries. Less than four years after her mission, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, and he managed to return home unharmed.

Unfortunately, on the road to exploring outer space, mankind spared no living beings - and not just animals, but humans. But if a person understood what is going on, then the defenseless animal was simply unable to resist people. Whether the government has acted correctly is not up to us, but history.

  (1954 - November 3, 1957) is a Soviet cosmonaut, the first animal brought into Earth's orbit. It was launched into space on November 3, 1957, at half past five in the morning Moscow time on the Soviet ship Sputnik-2. At that time, Laika was about two years old, and weight - about 6 kilograms. Return of Laika to Earth was not planned. Like many other animals in space, the dog died during the flight - in 5-7 hours after the start, she died of stress and overheating, although it was assumed that she would live about a week.

   Sputnik 2

In the design of the airtight cockpit "Sputnik-2", in which Laika was supposed to fly, besides the designers, there were physicians and engineers V. Danileiko, LA Grebenev, V. S. Georgievsky, V. G. Builov and A. I Afanasyev. The sealed cabin looked like a cylinder with a convex bottom. In the cockpit there was a power unit, an air conditioning system, which was a regeneration unit. The air regeneration device, designed for 7 days of operation, consisted of plates of highly active chemical compounds through which air was passed to enrich with oxygen and remove water vapor and carbon dioxide. The regeneration devices were located in special enclosures to the left and right of the dog. Their development was occupied by AD Seryapin and ZS Skuridina. The association Biofizpribor was engaged in the development of KMA-01 equipment for the registration of animal physiology data. "KMA-01" could record the pulse, respiration rate, blood pressure, remove the electrocardiogram and body temperature. The automatic feeding system was an automatic container, in hermetically sealed cells there was a jelly-like nutritional formula. Twice a day the machine opened the lid of the container with food rich in proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and water. Along with the creation of the feeding machine, the optimal diet of the dog was also developed.

   Preparation

Mice, rats and dogs were offered for experimental launches in order to confirm the safety of space missions. The variant of starts with monkeys was also considered, but the choice fell on the dogs, as they are better suited to training and more calm than monkeys. Designers set a dog weight limit of 6-7 kg, but small pedigree dogs were not suitable for flying, they were often pampered, too demanding for food and not enduring. Therefore, dogs were taken from the kennel of stray animals. According to the recommendations of specialists in film, photo and television equipment, it was decided to select white dogs, because the white looked better in the frame. Of all the whites were then screened out according to the results of training in pressure chambers, on centrifuges and shaker stands. Of the 10 dogs, 3 claimed the first space flight with a living creature on board: Albina, Laika and Mukha. Albina has already completed two suborbital flights, but she was sorry, because she was waiting for the offspring, and decided that she would be a backup. The fly was not chosen because of the small curvature of the paws, which would look ugly in the photos, and it was made a "technological dog". It tested the operation of equipment and various systems. Before the flight, Laika was operated on, during which the sensors were installed on the ribs and a heart rate sensor near the carotid artery. During the last stage the dogs were trained for a long time in the container layout. When Laika was already at Baikonur, she was put for several hours in the cab, where she got used to the trough, wearing sensors, overalls, a sewage device and finding in an enclosed space. Lajki's overalls were fastened to the container with small cables. Their length allowed to take Laika a supine, sitting position, and also to move slightly backwards-forward. In the lower third of the cables there were contact-rheostat sensors, the purpose of which was the registration of motor activity. On the morning of October 31, 1957 preparations for landing in the satellite began. Laika treated the skin with dilute alcohol, the places of the wire exits from the sensors were treated with iodine. In the middle of the day, Laika was put in a sealed chamber, at one in the morning she was placed on a rocket. Shortly before the flight, it was necessary to depressurize the camera and give us water to drink: the medical personnel who saw the doctor thought that the dog wanted to drink.

   Laiks Flight

   The launch of Sputnik-2 was made on November 3, 1957. The telemetry data showed that after the actions of the overloads, when Laika was already in weightlessness, the pulse rate was restored to almost normal values, the motor activity became moderate, the movements were short and smooth. But it took 3 times more time to normalize the pulse than in ground-based experiments. The electrocardiogram did not show any pathological changes. Laika was alive for 4 turns around the Earth. Due to an error in calculating the satellite area and the absence of a thermal control system, the temperature has risen to 40 ° C during this time. The dog died from overheating. The satellite itself made 2570 turns around the Earth, then burned in the atmosphere on April 4, 1958. A special commission from the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers did not believe that Laika died because of a design error, and ordered to conduct experiments with similar conditions on Earth, which resulted in the death of two more dogs.

   Reaction

The press in the USSR did not immediately realize the significance of the event. TASS officially announced the launch of Sputnik-2 on the same day, but the article first listed all the research equipment and only in the end it was written that there was a dog named Laika on board. In the Western press, it became a sensation. The articles expressed admiration for her and at the same time experience. "The most shaggy, the most lonely, the most unhappy dog ​​in the world" - so wrote "The New York Times" in her issue of November 5, 1957. Within 7 days the USSR transmitted data on the state of health of a dead dog. Only a week after the launch, the Soviet Union reported that they allegedly put Lika to sleep. This caused an unprecedented flurry of criticism in Western countries on the part of animal advocates. The Kremlin received many letters with protests against cruel treatment of animals and even with sarcastic sentences to send the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, NS Khrushchev, into space instead of a dog. Some of the employees who participated in the training of Laika psychologically suffered the death of the dog psychologically. The Soviet physiologist OG Gazenko was so telling about his psychological state after Laika's launch:

"By itself, starting and receiving ... information - everything is very cool. But when you realize that you can not return this Laika, that she dies there, and that you can not do anything, and that no one, not only me, no one can return it, because there is no system for returning, it's some kind of heavy feeling. Do you know? When I returned to Moscow from the cosmodrome, and for a while there was still jubilation: speeches on the radio, in the newspapers, I left the city. Do you understand? I wanted some privacy. "

   Flight Value

The experiment confirmed that a living creature can survive launch into orbit and weightlessness. The first animals safely returned from the orbital space flight were Belka and Strelka dogs. It is noteworthy that Soviet scientists in those years chose dogs for space testing, American scientists - chimpanzee monkeys. April 11, 2008 in Moscow on the Petrovsky-Razumovskaya alley on the territory of the Institute of Military Medicine, where a space experiment was prepared, a monument was erected to Laika (sculptor - Pavel Medvedev). The two-meter monument is a space rocket, passing into the palm of your hand, on which Laika stands proudly.

   Laika in mass culture