Cosmic Critters: Laika—The Stray Who Became a Space Pioneer

Blast off with Wildly Curious as Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole launch into the incredible story of Laika, the first living creature to orbit Earth. This fearless stray dog from the streets of Moscow became a space pioneer aboard Sputnik 2, forever changing our understanding of space travel. But her journey wasn’t just about science—it was a tale of sacrifice, Cold War competition, and the early days of the space race.

From the first fruit flies sent skyward to the wild world of animal astronauts, this episode kicks off our  explores the unexpected ways animals shaped human spaceflight. With a mix of humor and history, Katy and Laura unravel the legacy of Laika and the groundbreaking (and sometimes heartbreaking) missions that paved the way for human exploration beyond our planet.

Whether you’re a space enthusiast, science history buff, or just love a good underdog story, this episode is a must-listen!

Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Wildly Curious. A podcast that tells you everything you need to know about nature, and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura. Yeah.

Katy: how we used to launch crap into space, and by crap, animals. Just launching

Laura: Launching.

Katy: into space. Yeah, not with like, you know, slingshots and, and stuff, but rockets and All the different animals that have basically shaped our understanding of life in outer space before we could

Laura: laid the groundwork for man, for sure. Like, we couldn't have done it without

Katy: yeah.

Laura: And their sacrifices.

Katy: exac yeah, the sacrifices. That's all, that's pretty much what I got from this, is just the sacrifices. Just the sacrifices of

Laura: So guys, I would say that, like, we're gonna, so we're gonna do these as our mini sodes. , so you'll get, like, little stories every other week about these. But trigger warning, at least on most of mine. There is, like, this is kind of [00:01:00] like a throwback to our original listeners with Mad Science, where we were like, there's some trigger warnings here about, animal death.

Alright?

Katy: yeah. There's a lot of that here, cause we're launching animals into space. So, there's definitely a lot of that there. So again, like Laura said, these are going to be mini sode, so we're going to jump back and forth. I'm going to do this week, Laura will take two weeks from now, because next week will be a regular episode.

 And then we're just going to keep bouncing back and forth. Alrighty,

Laura: What's your first one?

Katy: So the first one that I'm gonna talk about is I think it's how you pronounce it is like a

Laura: Okay.

Katy: And it was one of the first animals into space. A

Laura: yeah, one of the most if you know about. Animals being launched into space.

Katy: Yes, what? Yeah, it could be this

Laura: Well, there's like two really famous ones. Although,

Katy: There are two really famous

Laura: know that much about.

Katy: No, no, and this one, like, they definitely sent other animals into space before, but Laika was, and I'll get [00:02:00] into it, but Laika was like the first one to legitimately be in space, and not just launch via a rocket and then it exploded on the way up.

, I don't know how, she successfully made it to space, is I guess, I guess what you should say. , so, Laika's story begins in the 1940s and 50s as the U. S. and the Soviet Union raced, literally, to get to

Laura: And I feel like that's why people don't know that much about these guys anymore. Is because it's so taken for granted. Like, Like the space race isn't as much of a thing anymore. We've kind of like let that one slide, and so Kids, kids these days. They don't know about us launching things on rockets

Katy: Launching animals into space But the early experiments included fruit flies. Like I said other things That they were set up and basically captured German v2 rockets Fruit flies were chosen for their simplicity. They were small lightweight and already well studied and genetic so we could They were well studied here on Earth, and so then we [00:03:00] could send them up into space and be like, Okay, here's, I understand what this is doing and everything, so it made it a lot

Laura: flies was a good first choice

Katy: I think I, you know what, I think so. Very basic, nobody cares. You're not gonna hear a protest over fruit flies, like it's, it's gonna be fine. However, from fruit flies, they then went up to larger animals. No, I won't. I won't. They started sending monkeys, mice, frogs were sent skyward. And each mission pretty much built on the data from the last.

 As one was launched and died in space, then they were like, okay, lessons learned from this one. Now let's go on to this one. Now let's go on to this

Laura: like country specific, right? 'cause this is a race. So like we're not sharing our info with Russia. They're not sharing our their info with us.

Katy: Yeah, it was very much so like hush hush because it's a race and so nobody which every time I'm gonna say that now But mr. Bean and the rat race. Maybe it's a race. [00:04:00] Yeah, it's such a good movie So like a was a stray dog from the streets of Moscow chosen to become a cosmonaut During the Soviet Union's space race with the US small resilient and calm under pressure Like a fit the criteria for a space bound pioneer.

Meanwhile, okay But also, okay, also imagine being this sweet stray, comes in off the street, you're like, you know what, I'm small, she's I'm resilient, calm under pressure, she's like, I'm gonna make the perfect dog for a family, and she's just now launched into space.

Laura: Yeah, but also or like I feel like I I can't believe that Disney has never made a movie about Laika We did Balto Shout out to Balto a great movie maybe it's because it's russian, but like It would be a great story from the dog's point of view, right? Again, because from streets to space.

That's literally what the name of the movie should be called. Okay, there you go, guys.

Katy: [00:05:00] to

Laura: streets to space. She is just a street dog, Stray. And then all of a sudden she's chosen to be an astronaut? Like, that's something that, it would be such a good movie.

Katy: it would be it would be Pixar.

Laura: There you go,

Katy: up from us. Yeah, right So, Laika's story begins with the launch of Sputnik 2 on November 3rd, 1957, just one month after the success of Sputnik 1, which was the first artificial satellite. Laika wasn't just a passenger, she was part of the mission designed to test whether a living creature could survive long term in space.

Sputnik 2 wasn't equipped to return her safely to Earth, something scientists and the public did know, but the mission aimed to gather critical data for future human spaceflight. So it was, you know, and times were different then, you know, people, they were like, it,

Laura: were like, it's not someone's pet.

Katy: Yeah, so they, well, I don't even think they would care then.

You know what I mean? Because things were just very different back then. So, training for space. Before her [00:06:00] flight, Laika underwent very rigorous training. She and other dog candidates were kept in increasingly small enclosures to simulate the cramped conditions of the spacecraft. Which I'm just like, can you imagine like this dog is just like Are the walls getting closer?

Like, I feel like, you know what I mean? Like, they just don't know to get them, used to it. They were also trained to remain calm during loud noises and extreme vibrations, mimicking the stress of launch. Laika was fitted with a harness and a monitoring equipment to track her heart rate, respiration, and movement.

Despite the challenging conditions, Laika adapted remarkably well. Her calm demeanor made her an ideal candidate, and she was ultimately the one chosen for the first dog to orbit. So she was taken off the streets, put through all these tests and everything, to then see, yeah, basically went to space camp, and then they were like, this dog, this is the one.

So, on November 3rd, 1957, Laika was secured in her capsule and launched into orbit. The spacecraft reached out speeds of over 17, [00:07:00] 000 miles an hour, propelling her into the history books as the first living creature into the orbit of Oarth, Earth. So it was like the first one that like, was actually Yes, orbital,

Laura: Right, not suborbital. Yeah.

Katy: in space, space.

 For the first few hours Laika's vital signs showed she was calm. Through the stress of the flight eventually caused her heart rate to spike. Tragically though, the spacecraft overheated due to a malfunction and Laika's life ended within just a few hours of launch. And it, I mean, of course it's heartbreaking because you're like, the dog died, but then at the same time, it's like, they were at least, for science reasons, because they all knew she was going to go and not come back, but it was supposed to be studying the long term effects of space.

And it wasn't long term, it was very short term, a few hours. So they were obviously, disappointed through that. So, like his legacy, , her story obviously began both heroic and bittersweet. Her mission confirmed that living organisms could survive the launch [00:08:00] and briefly function in space, which paved the way for human spaceflight.

Because once, because again, it wasn't her, it's not like her, her heart rate spiked and then she died and they were like, what happened? What on earth happened? I guess humans can't survive in space. No, the Sputnik exploded. Like, so they knew, or they, it overheated and blew up and so they knew it was mechanical, it wasn't Um, so it was definitely, you know, Hey, this can be successful, let's go ahead and launch, launch humans next.

So Laika's story remained definitely, you know, the path of understanding for the Soviets, because again, at the time, we didn't know about it. But it was, like I said, the first actual large organism to orbit, orbit space.

Laura: That's amazing.

Katy: Yeah,

Laura: kind of dog was she? What did she look like?

Katy: It was a mod, hold on, let me look it up here.

Laura: She's little.

Katy: Yeah, she was little, like, almost like a, like a, Terrier or something like a Jack Russell mix of something or other. Let me see

Laura: yeah, yeah. 

Katy: Yeah, it just said a mixed breed [00:09:00] dog. That was likely no a hundred percent So one of this says likely Siberian husky or no It's a hundred percent wasn't

Laura: looks like a Jack Russell or some kind of hound. Like,

Katy: like a terrier like some sort of she's definitely some sort So even if she does it's like far descendant of a husky, but it's definitely some sort of like terrier mix

Laura: Yeah.

Katy: Yep, so that's, that's episode one for us guys. So, next week then, we're gonna have a full length episode and then the week after that we'll be back with Laura to talk about the second cosmic critter. Make sure to go follow us on Patreon and check out our YouTube because I've been uploading all the episodes

Laura: With our

Katy: I have to do the last weeks.

What? Yeah. For our faces, there's a way more fun. So make sure you guys go check us out on YouTube. If you just search wildly curious podcasts, same thing on Patreon to help support us so we can keep this going. We greatly appreciate it. bye.