00:00November 3rd, 1957. Just one month after Sputnik's beeps stunned the world. The Soviets do it again.
00:09This time, they send a living soul into the void. A small stray dog named Laika blasts off aboard Sputnik
00:172, the first creature to orbit Earth.
00:20But she has no ticket home. Laika, originally Kudryavka, meaning Little Curly, was a calm, tough Moscow street mutt, about
00:30two or three years old, picked because females were better suited for confinement.
00:34She endured brutal training, centrifuges simulating launch forces, shrinking cages to mimic the tiny capsule, gelatin food for weightlessness.
00:44On launch day, strapped in a padded compartment with sensors tracking her heart and breath, the R7 roars to life.
00:53G-forces hit five times normal. Her pulse triples, breathing quadruples. She survives the ascent. Telemetry confirms. Laika reaches orbit
01:04alive.
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