Comments on Where No Man (or Animal) Had Gone Before

I remember being a kid and hearing about Laika and completely freaking out that someone had done that to a dog. I never heard anything about "landing safely", especially since burn-up on reentry seemed guaranteed. Did anyone really believe that she gently coasted to a stop, was then removed, petted, and poisoned? Scratch that. Lots of people believe lots of stupid, improbable things.

It is called a hot dog!! LOL

@2

Nice!

I prefer smokin' hot bitch.

Dogs Die In Hot Capsules

Rest in peace, Laika. Your ashes were scattered and drifted to earth, but your soul will be space-bound forever.

Actually, she was eaten by a space-pitbull. Such is the power and evil of pitbulls that they can launch themselves into orbit, and then survive there indefinitely, without air or water, a la the creature from _Alien_.

This is also what did in the Columbia shuttle. Space-pitbull *ate* through the quartz windshield. True story.

This was wonderfully captured in a graphic novel by Nick Abadzis. czech it out.

Actually, James Harford confirmed the details of this in his 1997 biography of Chief Soviet Rocket Designer Sergei Korolev. I'd have to go back to my copy to cite the source, but it was most likely one of Korolev's associates at OKB-1, the rocketry design bureau that Korolev headed until his death in 1966.

"Did anyone really believe that she gently coasted to a stop, was then removed, petted, and poisoned? Scratch that. Lots of people believe lots of stupid, improbable things."

Yeah, and lots of people believe that they are loads smarter than others without bothering to have any clue what they are talking about. Nor even bothering to read the post they are commenting on:

"Laika died in-flight. The “official” version of her death was that, after completing her mission, she was fed a last meal of delicious chow and deadly poison."

"you can look into the sky you might see a falling star/

if I get one wish I hope that Laika will go far/

I hope she sails on and on across the universe/

finds there some new world where she'll be safe from man's experiments/

that don't have come home parts"

my friends wrote a great song about laika - check it out:
http://www.myspace.com/xandertheband

I always heard that she died of dehydration in the spaceship as she didn't have food or water. It actually makes me feel better to know she died quickly, rather than suffering for a long time.

The dog died in a capsule that was heated to 106F. That's fucking heat exhaustion! Slow and awful until you pass out.

Hartford first heard the story of Laika's demise from Gyorgi Grechko, a cosmonaut who had previously worked with Korolev, during an interview conducted in 1989. (cit ref Hartford, p. 132).

Death was estimated at having occured some five to seven hours after launch, caused by the failure of the Sputnik 2 capsule to separate from it's 3rd stage booster, thus preventing the capsule's thermal control system from operating.

And yes, @14, the combination of heat and stress would have made the poor little pooch's death quite painful indeed.