August 19: Dogs in Space

On 19 August 1960, Корабль-Спутник—known in the west as Sputnik 5—launched. It’s “crew” included dogs Belka (Белка) and Strelka (Стрелка), forty mice, two rats, a rabbit, flies, plants, and fungi. Sputnik 5 returned safely to earth the following day. It was the first mission to take animals into space and then return then safely to Earth.

During the 1950s, the Soviet Union and the United States had become involved in a cold war. Part of the cold war was fought in space. In 1957, The Soviet Union shocked the United States when they launched the first satellite into space. The same year, they launched the first flight with a animal; a dog named Laika (Лайка) who died during the flight.

The Soviet Union also launched the first man—Yuri Gagarin—into outer space on 12 April 1961and the first female—Valentina Tereshkova—into outer space on 16 June 1963. However, on 20 July 1969, American Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.
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Belka and Strelka became celebrities in the Soviet Union. After she made her historic flight, Strelka mated and gave birth to six puppies. One of the puppies, Pushinka (Пушинка), was given as a gift to President John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline.

In 2010, Белка и Стрелка. Звёздные собак, an animated film, told the story of the first dogs in space. This film, is known in the west as Belka & Strelka: Star Dogs or just Space Dogs.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

2 Responses

  1. anna.nowak says:

    While the thing that the then Soviet Union did beat the USA to, it seems, to me, in a way, foolish. To spend so much money to fly a bunch of animals to space and bring them home the next day has no point really. While it is fun and more of a lighter idea than the first satellite, it doesn’t seem to have any sort of outcome that could change anything. I understand that it can intrigue a less serious crowd; the overall end result didn’t really change what we did and didn’t know. To me, and it’s probably because I am biased towards the USA, I still think we got the bragging rights.

    -Anna Nowak

  2. Charles Hill says:

    The main purpose to fly animals into space was originally only to test the chances of surviving in spaceflight before they would send humans on space bound missions. Later animals were again sent into space for more testing but this time it was to investigate the the biological processes and also the effects that microgravity might present on a living organism. Even though animals and humans are not 100% the same it was a close enough test subject that scientists would feel safe with the same results as humans. To this day there has been six national space programs who have sent animals into space. These nations include the Soviet Union, United States, France, Iran, China, and Japan. The very first animals sent into space were fruit flies but after that many different types of animals have been sent into space including sheep, dogs, frogs, goldfish, hamsters, and many more. Animals set many landmarks for our space program and if it wasn’t for them we would probably not be that advanced in the space program as other nations who used animals as test subjects.

    -Charles Hill

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