“Belka” and “Strelka”, Soviet space dogs after landing. USSR, 1960.
The amount of people in the notes to this post (and any other space dogs related content) being surprised that Belka and Strelka or some other “dogmonaut” survived starts to concern me. Surely you guys know that most of the space dogs survived their journeys and went on with their doggy lives? Certainly you understand that getting the living creatures into the space and safely bringing them back was the point in these experiments? Like, you all get that these dogs were sent into space as part of the programme aimed at safely getting a human cosmonaut there, and Soviets weren’t just launching puppies to their deaths for the fun of it? You don’t just baselessly extrapolate Laika’s fate on all of them, right? Right?
Anyway, in case you get worried or upset looking at the space dogs’ photos, please know that most of the space dogs survived their journeys and went on with their doggy lives. They were sent into space as part of the programme aimed at safely getting a human cosmonaut there. Getting the living creatures into the space and safely bringing them back was the point in these experiments. Belka and Strelka definitely survived their flight, Strelka had puppies (one was gifted to JFK), and they both lived well into the old age.
i forget her actual name(it translates to little star) but the last of the dog cosmonauts before gagarins flight ended up being adopted by gagarin and his wife and he often spoke about being grateful for her contribution
That would be Zvozdochka. She was also named by Yuri Gagarin. Here’s a picture of her with her friends sourced from a Russia Beyond article that manages to misidentify all 4 dogs (correct labels added to bottom of photo added by me)
article that manages to misidentify all 4 dogs
Even more impressive when you look at the dogs and consider that Belka means “Whitey” and Chernushka means “Blackey”.
Belka just chillin there on the steppe grasses like nothing just happened.
Strelka went on to have six puppies with a male dog named Pushok who participated in many ground-based space experiments, but never made it into space. One of the puppies was named Pushinka (Пушинка, “Fluffy”) and was presented to President John F. Kennedy by Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. A Kennedy dog named Charlie and Pushinka mated, resulting in the birth of four puppies that JFK referred to jokingly as pupniks. Two of their puppies, Butterfly and Streaker, were given away to children in the Midwest. The other two puppies, White Tips and Blackie, stayed at the Kennedy home on Squaw Island but were eventually given away to family friends. Pushinka’s descendants were still living as of 2015.
The Russian infiltration goes deeper than we thought 😱
Dog diplomacy goes hard.
Broke: Exchanging manchurian candidate-style sleeper agents
Woke: Dog diplomacy
Dog diplomacy: Almost as cute as panda power.
The dogs are more cuddleable. But the pandas look more hug shaped.
I now need to see these puppies in a cheesy 2000s spy movie, Cats Vs. Dogs meets The Americans. Lol.
It’s funny to me how anti-communists use Laika as a bloody shirt to attack the USSR while ignoring the many monkeys killed by NASA
That’s Professor Farnsworth levels of ethics: “Science cannot move forward without heaps [of dead monkeys]!”
or the French jamming electrodes into a dozen cats brains, sending one of them to space, euthanising it to necropse it, and then euthanising the other 10.
I’ve mentioned this before but the scientists just flat refused to send up another dog without a solid return capsule after Laika.
Soviet physicists and rocket engineers have a pretty solid track record on scientific ethics all things considered. they almost went on strike to end the suppression of gene theory, they were all in beating the nazis, they didn’t want to keep sending up dogs. I mean they were still scientists of the 20th century so pretty bad all around, but better than expected.
Visiting the museum of cosmonautics in Moscow this year, they had a dog space suit in the exhibit:
Tell me that’s not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen
The dogs themselves are there too (stuffed)
Please, there’s gotta be photos of one of these dogmonauts wearing this. I am already overdosing on cuteness but I NEED it.
My favorite is ZIB. The Soviets had trained a dog, Bobik, that ran away before launch, so they just found a street dog, named it Substitute for Bobik, acronymed ZIB in Russian, sent her up instead and she came back fine!
I want to name my own pup Zib some day
Zib (that’s the dog)
Someone could make this into a wholesome animated movie. And have another plotline be an aeronautical engineer from a peasant family who befriends zib, and maybe picked her.
Yes and also Zib and Bobik meet and become friends and they envy each other’s live so they hatch a plan to switch careers.
Bobik: “It goes how fast!? Fuck that, I’m outta here!”
Showing this to my dog to let her know that she too can aspire to greatness.
What’s up dog?
the dog is up
160 km up to be exact
dogmonaut is my new favourite word
That would be Zvozdochka. She was also named by Yuri Gagarin.
Real one recognizes real one.
Strelka was my old pfp, she’s such a cutie.
Belka?
Cute and brave space doggies!
