Space Dogs

In June 1961, an unusual delivery was made to the American White House. Pushinka, a shaggy mixed-breed puppy, had been dispatched on the personal order of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as a gift to the wife and daughter of President John F. Kennedy.

The pooch may not have been a purebred, but she had something much more impressive in her bloodline: as an accompanying letter explained, Pushinka was “a direct descendant of the famous space traveler Strelka.”

Some thought the gift was a subtle way of rubbing in the fact that the Soviet Union was leading in the space race, but it could also be seen as a gesture meant to promote warmer relations between the two superpowers. Both perspectives fit into the vast mythology that surrounded the high-flying pooches Belka and Strelka, the first animals to successfully return from orbit sixty years ago, in 1960.

A Corps of Curs

It was another canine pair that was supposed to make the historic flight. Belka and Strelka were being trained as backups to the lead space dogs, Chaika and the red-haired Lisichka, who were much beloved by the Soviet space program’s chief designer, Sergei Korolyov. But Lisichka and Chaika died earlier that year when their rocket exploded during launch. After this catastrophe, it was considered bad luck to send copper-colored dogs into space.

Four-legged cosmonaut candidates were recruited straight from the street. Mongrels were preferred over purebreds for their adaptability and lack of pretentiousness, and females were favored over males (because it was easier to outfit them for sanitation). The candidate space travelers had to be young (but at least a year and a half old), healthy, friendly, and relatively small and light – no more than seven kilograms. Vladimir Yazdovsky, who headed research into the medical and safety aspects of piloted space flight, recalled: “The color of the coat is also an important characteristic. The coat should preferably be light-colored, because filming and television is used during flight as a way of observing the animals. It is also preferable for the animals to be short-haired. Long hair makes it harder to attach sensors and put on clothing, and it gets all over the cabin and frame to which the animal is attached.”

And, of course, it was nice to have photogenic dogs, since it was hoped they would achieve worldwide superstardom.

To this day, fabricated stories about the “star dogs” abound. The internet, even serious sources, is filled with fairy tales, such as that Belka and Strelka were originally named Albina and Marquise, but were renamed on the personal initiative of Mitrofan Nedelin, commander-in-chief of the Strategic Missile Force. As that story goes, Nedelin felt it was improper for Soviet animals to have foreign names.

Nobody knows where this piece of fiction originated. The story is accurate in one sense: the dogs were indeed renamed before being sent into orbit.

A couple of years ago, a fascinating document was publicly released: a journal kept by Oleg Gazenko that was discovered in the archives of the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medical and Biological Problems. A pioneer in the field of space medicine, Gazenko not only directly participated in training the tailed cosmonauts, he kept detailed records of their test results and vital signs, along with diagrams showing the placement of sensors. The first page of the journal lists the members of the canine team: Lisichka, Chaika, Silva, Vilna, Marsiana, and Laska. The dogs went through rigorous training that involved habituating them to vibration, noise, stress, feeding devices, and sensors. But at that point, neither Belka nor Strelka were part of the team.

There was a two-day gap in Gazenko’s journal entries where a dried flower was placed between the sheets. This represents the point at which Lisichka and Chaika perished during the ill-fated launch. The central figures in the journal then became Silva and Vilna. But on August 13, 1960, we see in the records, Vilna was renamed Belka. Silva, who had previously been renamed Kaplya, was renamed a second time as Strelka. We can only guess at the reason for all this renaming. Perhaps secrecy played a role, or maybe the idea was that these soon-to-be famous dogs needed catchy names that could be easily pronounced by speakers of any language. Whatever the case may have been, the dogs would come to fame as Belka and Strelka.

The Path to Liftoff

The town of Tomlino lies southeast of Moscow. Not long ago, in 2017, a bronze statue of Belka and Strelka (done in a cartoonish style to appeal to children) was installed in a park in Tomlino. Rumor has it, the streets of Tomlino is where the dynamic duo was originally nabbed. Whether or not this is true, there is good reason for commemorating them here. Tomlino is home to the Zvezda (Star) Research & Development Production Facility where, in 1958, equipment of crucial importance for the launch and the field of cosmonautics overall was made.

Deputy chief designer of space equipment, Mikhail Sumnikov offers the following information:

For Belka and Strelka’s spaceflight, our facility developed a space chair and a hermetic cabin for the animals, the GKZh-2. The cabin was designed to support the two animals’ life functions for fifteen days in space and five days after returning to Earth – the period allowed for finding the capsule. The cabin was equipped with automatic food dispensers, waste containment devices, and scientific research technology. The flight was the first time that television monitoring enabled observation of the animals’ behavior. After landing, the animals were automatically released from their restraints, and they were able to assume comfortable positions. The space chair that held them served as a prototype for the seat used by Gagarin and helped to work out the principles for return to Earth through ejection from the descent module.

Few realize how many fellow passengers accompanied Belka and Strelka on their spaceflight. “In addition to the two dogs, the ejection container held twelve mice, insects, plants, fungal cultures, seeds from corn, wheat, peas, and onions, several microbial species, and other biological specimens,” according to Vladimir Yazdovsky. “Outside the ejection container, in the ship’s cabin, there were 28 laboratory mice and two white rats.”

The flight lasted 25 hours, during which the ship completed 17 orbits around the earth. As expected, the dogs’ heart and breathing rate accelerated due to the stress of take-off, but they quickly returned to normal. However, during the fourth orbit, Belka began to struggle to escape her restraints and bark, and she began to vomit. This reaction contributed to the subsequent decision to send a human into orbital flight for a shorter time.

The triumphant return of the shaggy crew yielded invaluable information about the effect of various aspects of space flight on the physiological, genetic, and cell biology systems of living beings.

The “Star” Trek

Just like real “stars,” these little cosmonauts went through countless press conferences, radio and television appearances, photo shoots, visits to daycare centers and schools, and meetings with factory workers. Meanwhile, the number of dogs whose owners gave them the names Belka or Strelka is beyond calculation. The Detsky Mir publishing house brought out a book by Yury Galperin, The Adventures of Belka and Strelka («Приключения Белки и Стрелки»), and a children’s filmstrip inspired by the spaceflight was made featuring the verse of Yuri Yakovlev. Portraits of the canine cosmonauts adorned match boxes, candy boxes, postcards, and postage stamps, and Belka and Strelka were reproduced in the form of porcelain statuettes, toys, and holiday ornaments.

In the words of Olesya Turkina, author of Soviet Space Dogs: “Due to the strict secrecy surrounding the space program, the recognition that ultimately belonged to scientists and engineers was totally shifted onto Belka and Strelka. This secrecy also fit well with the government’s standard approach, which dictated that every outstanding achievement belongs to the entire Soviet people, and not to individuals.”

The dogs were often depicted flying on a rocket and dressed in colorful red and green space suits, but these brightly colored outfits were the pups’ “dress uniforms” that they wore to press conferences after their flight. During their actual flights, they were dressed quite differently and much more functionally. (Similarly, the cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was depicted making the first spacewalk in a colorful yellow, orange, and red space suit, although in reality the spacewalk was made in a plain white suit.)

Sergei Korolyov was willing to send a man into space only after two more successful canine flights. They took place in March of 1961. First there was Chernushka, accompanied by a mannequin nicknamed Ivan Ivanych that contained mice, a guinea pig, and various microorganisms. These space travelers orbited the earth and successfully landed. Next came Zvyozdochka, a dog who also, incidentally, underwent a number of renamings. She started out as Udacha, the Russian word for success. This sparked typical Russian superstitions about jinxing, so Udacha became Zvyozdochka (Little Star). Seventeen days after Zvyozdochka’s flight, the first human was launched into space.

Legend has it that at a banquet after his return to Earth, Yuri Gagarin remarked: “I’m still not sure who I am. Am I the first man or the last dog?” Could Gagarin really have made such an ambiguous joke? Or is this just another myth, a piece of folklore, something someone thought up? Those who knew Gagarin well claim that, yes: in an informal setting he was fully capable of making such a remark.

For now, we will confine this unverified rumor to the vast realm of space mythology.