The dogs that (almost) got away
The Soviet Union sent its fair share of dogs to space during the formative years of the country’s space program, including Laika—the first animal ever sent to Earth orbit. Laika died during this one-way mission. These experiments were crude by today’s standards, as Laika, among other Soviet dogs sent to space, were literally stray mutts picked off the street.
Prior to the 1957 Laika mission, the Soviet Union conducted a number of high-altitude tests with canines. In 1951, a dog named Smelaya ran away a day before the scheduled launch, leading to concerns that she might get eaten by wolves living nearby, according to NASA’s “A Brief History of Animals in Space.” Smelaya managed to return the next day, and the test flight proved to be a success. Later that same year, a dog named Bobik also escaped, never to return. Unfazed, the mission planners found a replacement hanging out near a local pub; the team named her ZIB—the Russian acronym for “Substitute for Missing Dog Bobik.” It’s the classic story of hanging out at a bar one day and then finding yourself launched to a suborbital height of 60 miles (100 kilometers) the next.
