Soviet Professor Says Sputnik Dog Is Dead

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28434, 14 November 1957, Page 15

Soviet Professor Says Sputnik Dog Is Dead

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 11 p.m.) NEW YORK, November 13. A Soviet planetarium lecturer told 200 Muscovites yesterday that Laika, the world's first space passenger, was dead, the “New York Times” reported todav.

A dispatch from Moscow to the newspaper said the announcement was not official, but neither was it qualified by the lecturer, Professor Konstantin Portsevskv.

The professor said lhe dog, which was shot aloft in the Soviet Union's second earth satellite, had died some time before the satellite's radios went out last week-end.

The planetarium and the “New York Times” r<

iencc sighed at the news, ’port said.

“Pravda’’ today devoted a page and a half and illustrations to the sputniks but did not say whether the dog was alive or dead.

It said Laika had made a great contribution towards mastering interplanetary flight. The dog’s reactions to space travel would serve as a basis for evolving means ensuring the security of human flight into cosmic space. The first sputnik, “Pravda” said, was expected to burn up by the end of the vear while Sputnik II would remain aloft considerably longer. Data collected showed that the state Of the space dog during the entire experiment remained satisfactory. The experiment enabled experts to examine the condition of an animal organism in a state of weightlessness maintained for several days.

"Pravda” said Sputnik II was put in orbit with the aid of a multi-stage rocket. The satellite itself represented the last stage of the rocket. Laika was in a cylindrically-shaped air-tight cabin which contained food and an airconditioning device.

A report by the official Russian news agency Tass said Laika had been previously trained and was accustomed to staying quietly? in the cabin for a period of several weeks.

The cabin, as well as a spherical container housing the cabin and various instruments, was made of aluminium alloys. Their surfaces were polished and specially treated to give them the required coefficients of reflection and of absorption of solar radiation. “Pravda.” in calculating the life of the sputniks, said their flight depended on the resistance they had to overcome in the atmosphere.