The Story of Mutnik

    The days of wandering the streets of Russia alone, had finally come to an end. Now she finally had a home. Well, not quite, it was more like being moved from one uncomfortable environment to another. Only this one was more unpredictable, and most definitely unexplainable.
    In the beginning, fear was mingled with excitement. She was finally clean, warm, and well fed. There were two others like her. The humans called them Albina, and Mushka. They called her Laika. Because she was a barker, they said.
    In the beginning she had a nice kennel. Slowly, however, her kennel became smaller and smaller. For days, at least 20, she stayed in one place. After a while she stopped urinating, and began to grow thin, sick and weak. But, then the humans decided that was a bad idea. Instead they began simulations. She was put into a small padded cubical that was very shaky and very loud. It was scary, but eventually she began to get use to it.
    They also took away her normal food. They began feeding her a strange gel. They said it was highly nutritious and would prepare her for the food she would eat on the voyage.
    Then one day one of the humans took Laika home to play with his children. They said it was because he felt sorry for her, and thought she would like it.
    The next day she was cleaned really nice and then put into another cubicle. But this time there were more people, lots of lights, and it was very exciting. The humans said that she was being put into a spacecraft called Sputnik 2, and that the American's had a different name for her. It was Mutnik.
    The Voyage didn't last long. Not for Laika. Even though she was the first animal to orbit the world, and even though there was now proof that humans could indeed survive in space, it was a horrible experience. At first she was scared, her heart was beating out of control, but then, she calmed down and decided to eat her food. But, a few hours into her voyage things began to change. The human's had failed to install an adequate cooling system and the temperature was rising.
    At approximately 6 hours of flight, the humans down on earth had no further signs of life from Sputnik 2.
    In the fight to be the first country to have a life form orbit earth, the Russians had too little time and had failed to make Sputnik correctly.
    Five months later Sputnik, and what was left of Laika, disintegrated as they re-entered the earth's atmosphere.
    Today, in Star City Russia, there is a memorial erected to Liaka: the first being to orbit the earth, and the first to die in space.

By the way, I want to dedicate this post to Monica Swartz, since she is the one who suggested I present on Mutnik. Thanks a ton!!!