Into the Cosmos Page 21
Cold War Celebrity and the Courageous Canine Scout 135
ary objects in the complex and politically charged enterprise of Cold War
public science. Although they meant different things to different audi-
ences, the concept of “dog” underpinned all of these meanings, allowing
the space dogs to serve as an interface or “translation” between otherwise
divergent social worlds.5 The canine cosmonauts’ status as dogs estab-
lished a measure of mutual intelligibility across the diverse but intersect-
ing perspectives of engineers, politicians, medical personnel, scientists,
and the general public.
The multivalent and historically conditioned relationships between
humans and the dog ( Canis lupus familiaris) informed the space dogs’
media-mediated celebrity and fueled their ongoing fame. As the oldest
domesticated species, dogs’ ecologies have been intertwined with human
societies since the Upper Paleolithic.6 Its long cohistory with humanity
has made the dog a profoundly social creature. Most dogs spend most of
their lives in mixed-species groups, whether as scavengers, herders, haul-
ers, guardians, pets, or laboratory research animals.7 They are implicated
in a myriad of human activities and undertakings where the dynamics of
dependency and exploitation can tilt toward either party.
As social domesticates, dogs offer the historian an important, pos-
sibly unique wedge into the nexus of nature and culture. Unpacking the
complexities and significance of the space dogs’ role requires us to think
about the concept of “companion species”—not just as “companion ani-
mals” (like the ones with whom many of us share our domestic space),
but rather as historically situated animals in companionate relations with
humans whose actions are also conditioned by a particular set of his-
torical circumstances.8 In the case of the space program, those relations
brought humans and dogs together in decidedly unequal ways in an ef-
fort to overcome not just the “great divides” of human/nonhuman and
nature/culture, but also the forces of gravity that tether all beings to their
terrestrial home. It is precisely this intertwining that explains the global
resonance of the space dogs and the enduring fame of Laika.
Dogs in Space
Long before the launch of Sputnik 2 catapulted Laika to global celeb-
rity, the possibility of extending and transcending the bounds of Earth’s
environment by travel into space had captured the Soviet imagination.9
In the 1920s “biocosmists” promoted the idea of space exploration in pop-
136 Amy Nelson
ular science journals, drawing on the utopian visions of Nikolai Fedorov
(1829–1903), who foresaw space travel as a way to achieve immortality
and proposed that space colonization might relieve Malthusian pressures
on an overpopulated Earth. The mass media also publicized the more
practical theories of Konstantin Tsiolkovskii (1857–1935), who suggested
that rocket fuel propulsion could make spaceflight a reality and developed
a plan for an artificial satellite as early as 1879.10 Efforts to realize these ambitions after World War II approached space both as an extension of
the “nature” humans had subdued on Earth, and as a decidedly “unnatu-
ral” (or certainly inhospitable) realm that might be exploited if not con-
quered.11 The guiding force behind these efforts was the “chief designer”
Sergei Korolev (1907–1966), a gifted rocket engineer and visionary, who
was incarcerated in one of Stalin’s special prisons for scientists during
much of World War II.12 Released from prison in 1944, Korolev was
asked by Stalin to develop the Soviet missile program. Besides putting
his considerable talent to use in the development of rockets for military
and weaponry purposes, Korolev also pursued plans for space travel and
exploration by humans.
In 1948, Korolev enlisted the veteran surgeon and army doctor Vladi-
mir Yazdovsky (1913–1999) to head up the biological program for space
research at the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Moscow. From the be-
ginning, dogs figured prominently in the quest to determine the poten-
tial for humans to survive in space and in the development of the “closed
ecological systems” (space capsules) that would make that possible. While
researchers in the United States preferred small monkeys and later chim-
panzees for space research, the Soviets found that dogs’ physiology and
ethology made them ideally suited for investigating the effects of space-
flight on humans.13 As Yazdovsky later recalled: “We selected dogs as bio-
logical objects because their physiology is very well-studied, they adapt
well to training, and are very communicative and social [ kontaktny] with people.”14 They were also cheap and readily available. Yazdovsky’s team
acquired a raft of strays from the streets of Moscow, selecting dozens of
healthy young adults by weight (six to seven kilograms, or thirteen to fif-
teen pounds, maximum), and for light coat color (which would facilitate
filming during flight). Researchers preferred mixed-breed dogs for their
hardy constitutions, and females, because their anatomy made fitting the
antigravity suit and sanitation equipment easier. In the decade leading
up to Gagarin’s flight, they sponsored missions with passenger slots for
Cold War Celebrity and the Courageous Canine Scout 137
more than seventy dogs, including twenty who were put on flights be-
tween Laika’s launch in 1957 and Gagarin’s successful flight nearly four
years later.15
While the dogs were being trained and tested, engineers worked with
biologists and medical doctors to design a life-support system and a con-
tainer that could be safely recovered. This involved refining the nose cone
separation mechanism of R-IB and R-IV rockets, installing air brakes,
and developing a reliable parachute system. Among the issues that most
concerned the designers were the potentially deadly effects of radiation,
extreme temperatures, and the environment of vacuum, as well as the
stresses of vibration, noise, and weightlessness on the dogs, who would
be confined in a very small space. Work on the rocket dog program pro-
ceeded in conditions of utmost secrecy, with the overall goal concealed
not just from the public but from many of the researchers as well. The
physician Alexander Seriapin, for example, recalled that Yazdovsky asked
him to design flight “clothing” for the dogs but did not tell him when or
how the suit would be used.16
The public would not find out for several years, but for Seriapin, who
helped design the life-support system for the space capsules, the answer
became clear in the summer of 1951, when the first set of “biological
launches” took place on the desolate steppe southeast of Stalingrad (now
Volgograd). Nine dogs flew in six vertical flights between July and Septem-
ber 1951, with somewhat mixed results. The first launch, on July 22, had
the dogs Dezik and Tsygan (“Gypsy”) aboard. They reached an altitude
of 101 kilometers (62 miles) and experienced four minutes of weightless-<
br />
ness before their parachute deployed and observers rushed to their cars
and sped out across the desert to find them. When the hatch was opened,
the dogs barked, wagged their tails, and became the first living beings
successfully recovered from spaceflight. Although dogs returned safely
from three of the remaining five launches, four died when the parachute
mechanism on their capsule failed to open properly. Among the victims
was Dezik, who was redeployed for the second launch on July 29.17
Although the vertical dog flights of 1951 provided valuable data, for
the next few years Korolev’s team focused its energies on improving mis-
siles and weapons technology, concentrating in particular on the develop-
ment of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Only after Stalin’s
death did Korolev renew his ambitions for space travel and exploration.
Since the first set of dog flights indicated that successfully recovering bio-
138 Amy Nelson
logical payloads would be a daunting task, the next series tested new air
brakes and recovery mechanisms as well as a novel method of providing
life support during the flight. In these nine flights, conducted between
1954 and 1956, the dogs were again sent up to an altitude of 62 miles (100
kilometers) but were harnessed to separate “sleds” and ejected separately.
Their parachutes also deployed at different altitudes during the capsule’s
descent. Whereas dogs in the first set of flights were harnessed into a
hermetically sealed cabin with an air regeneration system, for the second
series the canine subjects received life support via space suits with re-
movable helmets. Of the twelve dogs used, five perished.18
In this same period Korolev worked with Mikhail Tikhonravov (1901–
1974) to develop plans for an artificial satellite. Their proposal attracted
little attention from Soviet authorities, who remained focused on purely
military objectives until the United States announced plans to launch
its own artificial satellite in conjunction with International Geophysical
Year in 1957. This gave the Soviets the motivation to move forward with
Korolev’s own dreams, and the space race entered a new phase.19
As engineers tested and refined the R-7 rocket, which would soon
power orbital flights with canine passengers, a third set of vertical dog
flights commenced. For this series of five flights, which ran from May
through September 1957, the ejectable capsule was abandoned in favor of
a larger, hermetically sealed cabin inside the rocket’s nose cone that sepa-
rated for landing. The altitude almost doubled, with each flight reaching
a height of nearly 132 miles (212 kilometers). The dogs again flew in pairs,
all of them at least twice. In an effort to isolate the physical effects of
weightlessness from the general trauma of flight, one of the two dogs was
anaesthetized before launch.20 Oleg Gazenko (1918–2007), a physician
with a background in aviation medicine who joined the institute’s staff
in the fall of 1956, assumed a prominent role in selecting and testing the
dogs, who were now separated into two training cohorts—one for vertical
launches and one for long-term flights on satellites.
In the months leading up to the launch of Sputnik 1, the secrecy
around the rocket dog program gave way to a carefully calibrated public-
ity campaign. Geared for a global audience, media coverage of the pro-
gram celebrated Soviet technological achievements, portrayed the dogs
as unique individuals, and linked their journeys in rockets to the advent
of human spaceflight. A few weeks after Alexei Pokrovsky, the director of
the Institute of Aviation Medicine, reported on the first two flight series
Cold War Celebrity and the Courageous Canine Scout 139
at a scientific conference in Paris, an interview with him appeared in the
Soviet newspaper Trud.21 Photographs of dogs called Albina and Malysh-
ka, both veterans of the second test series, depicted healthy, alert animals
that could have been mistaken for “lap dogs,” confirming the claim that
they were well-treated “conquerors of the cosmos.” Echoing the popular
song “Vse vyshe” (Ever higher), which described the destiny of a genera-
tion born “to make fairy tales come true,” Pokrovsky clarified that “we do
our work in order to bring the time nearer when human flight in space
will move from fairy tales to real life.”22
In the West news that dogs had been sent as high as sixty miles above
the Earth and parachuted back safely accompanied announcements that
Malyshka “enjoyed” high altitude flights.23 A front-page photo in the New
York Times showed a petite canine clad in a modified diving suit, licking her nose, and sitting next to the plastic helmet that protected her during the flight.24 In June three of the rocket dogs, including Malyshka,
were introduced to the foreign press in Moscow.25 The launch of Sputnik 1
on October 4 was initially downplayed in the Soviet Union, becoming
headline news there only after the American press heralded the satellite’s
success as a major technological and political triumph.
Following the Sputnik 1 sensation, Khrushchev asked Korolev if an-
other satellite could be launched in time for the celebrations of the for-
tieth anniversary of the revolution in early November. Korolev quickly
agreed, suggesting that this apparatus, too, could carry a dog. The sym-
bolic and scientific significance of sending a living being into orbit was
enormous and would solidify Soviet preeminence in space research. On
October 27, Moscow Radio announced that a second satellite would be
launched soon, and introduced Kudriavka (Curly), a small shaggy dog
who barked into the microphone, as its likely passenger. When the suc-
cessful launch of Sputnik 2 was announced a week later, the Soviet news agency, TASS, confirmed that an experimental animal was on board the
five-hundred-kilogram spacecraft orbiting Earth every two hours.26 The
dog’s capsule had a life-support system, including an oxygen generator
and carbon dioxide absorbing device, as well as an automated feeding ap-
paratus. Radio transmitters enabled scientists on the ground to monitor
the dog’s vital signs and movement.
In the West interest in the dog was intense. The New York Times
headline on November 4—“Dog in Second Satellite Alive: May Be Re-
covered, Soviet Hints”—suggested widespread preoccupation with the
140 Amy Nelson
dog’s condition and future. Although official Soviet sources insisted that
the animal was in good condition, speculation and skepticism about the
possibility of its survival abounded. Western scientists doubted that the
return of the space capsule was technically feasible, although a lecturer at
the Moscow planetarium suggested that a safe return might be planned.27
On both sides of the Atlantic animal welfare groups protested the use of
the dogs in space experiments, denouncing them as cruel, unnecessary,
and of little benefit to human health and well-being. In London the Na-
tional Canine Defense League demonstrated in front of the Soviet em-
bassy. In New Yor
k a canine picket line circled United Nations Plaza,
bearing placards reading “Be Fair to Our Fellow Dogs” and “We’re Man’s
Best Friends—Treat Us Accordingly.”28 Soviet children, who worried the
dog might starve, suggested that a camel should have been sent instead.
Some volunteered themselves as test pilots on future flights.29
By November 5 details about the dog and its fate began to emerge. A
photo of “Laika” was published in the Soviet army’s newspaper, Krasnaia
zvezda (Red star), and a leading Soviet scientist discussed the mission’s progress “while the dog is still alive.”30 Knowing the name of the satellite’s
celebrated passenger dispelled rumors that the space dog might answer
to “Limonchik” (“Little Lemon”), “Linda,” or “Kozyavka” (“Gnat”), and
prompted Western media to cease referring to it as “Muttnik.” But there
was still debate over whether “Laika” was the same dog who had barked
over the airwaves as “Kudriavka.” The fact that “Laika” is both the term
for “barker” and the general designator for a number of Husky/Spitz-type
dogs used for hunting and transport in the Russian north remained con-
fusing for Westerners, even after the Soviets clarified that the dog’s name
reflected both breed characteristics and individual traits.31 The mass cir-
culation magazine Ogonek described Laika as a small mixed-breed dog,
with a calm, phlegmatic character, who never fought with her kennel
mates.32
The time and circumstances of the dog’s demise also remained un-
certain. For the first four days after the launch, TASS communiqués de-
scribed Laika’s condition as “satisfactory.”33 On November 8 the official
update indicated that physiological data were still being collected but did
not comment on the dog’s condition.34 Three days later TASS announced
that all of the experiments had been completed successfully and trans-
missions from Sputnik 2 had ceased.35 It was assumed that Laika was al-
ready dead or would die soon. The audience at the Moscow planetarium
Cold War Celebrity and the Courageous Canine Scout 141
gave a collective sigh when the news was announced. In a press confer-
ence for foreign journalists a few days later, Soviet scientists reported
that Laika had died when her oxygen ran out and insisted that her de-