On November 3, 1957, a small dog who had once lived on the streets of Moscow became the first animal to orbit Earth.
Her name was Laika, and she traveled aboard Sputnik 2 just one month after the Soviet Union stunned the world with Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. Laika in orbit represented another remarkable technological achievement. It was also a Cold War spectacle, a scientific experiment, and a mission designed from the beginning without a way to bring its passenger home.
More than six decades later, the machinery of Sputnik 2 is largely remembered by space historians. Laika herself has become something more: an enduring symbol of the promise, competition, sacrifice, and ethical contradictions of the early Space Age.
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