maxine's dreams

On July 22nd 1951, Tsygan and Dezik went into a low Earth orbit. They were two stray dogs, trained for spaceflight by the Soviet space program.
(The Russians loved sending dogs into space)

The dogs were trained to sit in tiny compartments for better than two weeks at a time and spun around in a centrifuge.

Some of the dogs that went up actually made it back alive!
But then they'd only get sent up again.

The pup pictured here, is Laika.
Launched into space on November 3rd 1957, she died, apparently, of stress and over heating during the flight.
Laika is now remembered as a Soviet national hero.