Hideo Furukawa - Belka, Why Don't You Bark?

That was the point of this mission.

Sputnik 5 blasted off on August 19. It circled the earth seventeen times in its planned orbit. And the following day, the two dogs returned to Earth alive.

These dogs had finally succeeded in a mission that did not result in inevitable death. One male dog and one bitch, each in a pressurized suit, had seen the earth from outer space and then returned. To the earth that had given birth to the canine tribe. Two dogs—two Soviet dogs. Their names—Belka and Strelka.

Belka and Strelka. They received a joyous welcome. They were Soviet heroes, these dogs, following in the footsteps of that other great hero, that dog among dogs, Laika.

Nikita Khrushchev was premier of the Soviet Union at the time. Having brushed aside various political enemies in the wake of Stalin’s death, he had become both First Secretary of the Communist Party and Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He was the first to crack a smile upon being informed that the two dogs had accomplished their glorious mission. “Two more heroes are born! Ura! ” he said, grinning. Once again Communism had overwhelmed the West in the areas of science and technology, demonstrating to the world that Communism would lead mankind forward! And we accomplished it with dogs! Haha! Those bastards must be quaking in their shoes, terrified to think that they’re about to be overtaken yet again in the space race. And yes, yes, all their fear was occasioned by two little dogs.

Ura!

Khrushchev had particular cause for his somewhat childish glee. As it happened, that first Soviet hero, Laika, had become a hero largely as a result of his efforts. Which is to say, the whole thing had started out as a whim on his part. This isn’t speculation, it’s truth: Khrushchev created the space dog. At first, he had given the go-ahead to the rocket program because he recognized the potential military significance of the research, not because he was captivated by the romance of space exploration. So it came about that on August 21, 1957, the USSR succeeded in launching an R-7 rocket whose astonishing propulsive force derived from a pack of booster rockets. The rocket, the Soviet Union’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, had a range of 4,350 miles. People called it by the affectionate nickname Semyorka. Sputnik 1, which was launched less than a month and a half later and became the first man-made satellite in the history of mankind, was essentially the same rocket, except that the Semyorka’s cone had been fitted with a man-made satellite rather than the nuclear warhead it had originally been designed to carry. All of which is to say that Khrushchev hadn’t had a whit of interest in or sympathy for his scientists’ dreams. People in space! The greatest adventure of the century! The spine-tingling thrill of science, of technology! He didn’t care. At first. But then, once they had actually launched the satellite, beating the US to the chase, he saw how stunned the entire world was. Those bastards in the West were quaking in their boots! Communism had opened the door to a new age for mankind, and they were flabbergasted! They were stunned!

This was very cool. Khrushchev grinned.

He even thought up a slogan. Whoever conquers space wins the Cold War.

At last, Khrushchev’s perspective changed. This was in October 1957. The anniversary of the October Revolution was coming up soon, the very next month, on November 7, and as it happened this year they would be celebrating the Revolution’s fortieth anniversary. Plans were being made for a grandiose ceremony. This is perfect! Khrushchev thought. If we had the Yankees trembling in their boots because we set a satellite in orbit around the earth, sending out little beeps, just imagine how humiliated they’ll be when we do it again almost immediately! We’ll turn their shock into shame.

Well then, let’s hit ’em with a bang!

There’s no time like the present, as they say, and so Khrushchev lost no time in arranging a meeting at the Kremlin with the people who had created Sputnik 1—the starry-eyed scientists who had been the driving force behind the rocket project. So, guys, how do you feel about sending up something flashy and doing it in time for the anniversary next month?

How do we feel about what? said the scientists.

Something that’ll make the Yankees groan with shame.

With only a month to prepare, it seems…

What should it be, I wonder? Khrushchev went on, ignoring the scientists’ befuddlement.

Something that would make them groan? You realize, of course, that we have certain plans of our own that…

Something flashy, Khrushchev told them, not even registering the consternation written on their faces.

Well, yes, Comrade Khrushchev, if you think that would… but what…

Something that’ll makes their jaws drop, those bastards in the West, you know? Bam! Just like that. You get what I’m saying? We won’t niggle about the budget, of course, it’s there, the same as always. Whoever conquers space wins the Cold War. Hahaha!

He was demanding the impossible. What sort of project could they possibly develop from scratch in a month? Still, it was an order. And so Sputnik 2 was born. The basic structure was the same as Sputnik 1, except that it had suddenly grown much larger, and it was equipped for experiments on living subjects. And it would carry the very first mammal ever to travel in space. It would carry a dog.

A dog?

The scientists themselves were dumbstruck when it occurred to them.

But that was the decision they made, and that’s how history unfolded. That’s how the great Soviet hero Laika was born. Khrushchev deserved the credit. Khrushchev created the space dog. And so, in the year zero Anno Canis, Laika rocketed into the sky and died.

Gazing down, all along, at the earth.

Khrushchev deserved the credit.

And now Khrushchev was bellowing Ura! In August 1960, two dogs returned alive from space, and Khrushchev guffawed. Two more heroes had been born. A male dog named Belka and a bitch named Strelka. They had returned to Earth as the Soviet Union’s great space dogs, Communism’s space dogs. Now Khrushchev had a dream. It was a quest—a political, military adventure. It was totally stupid. The kind of dream scientists wouldn’t care about at all.

The two dogs should mate. There was a need for their children to be born. The scientists were more than happy to go along with this part of the plan. They were gathering all sorts of data, everything they could think of relating to the effect of space flight on animals—on the animal, that is to say, as a living organism. Soon they would be sending a person up. They had to keep cranking out all kinds of experiments. Not just everything they could think of, even things they couldn’t quite imagine. This, in particular, was crucial. They had already determined that dogs could live in space, but might their bodies have been damaged in some way invisible to the eye? For instance, were these dogs, having once rocketed into space, still capable of reproduction? Could their sojourn in weightlessness have stripped them of that ability? Or might the lack of gravity one day produce some irregularity in their genes as a side effect? The scientists, eager to test this possibility, gladly mated Belka and Strelka. In fact, they later did the same thing with their human cosmonauts. The first female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova—who rode the Vostok 6 in June 1963, and whose call sign ya chaika , “I am a seagull,” became famous around the world—was pressured by the Kremlin elite into marrying Andrian Nikolayev, who had ridden on the Vostok 3 in August 1962. Data about the couple, including their experiences leading up to Tereshkova’s pregnancy and information relating to their daughter’s physical development, were gathered and closely guarded as a state secret. Of course, in a sense this made sense: at the time, the USSR treated any data related in any way to space exploration as top-secret information.