Soviet Space Dogs

Two posts about soviet space dogs today! That's because the death of little Laika, the first dog to travel to space, has always resonated with me. Although she died a few hours after launch, subsequent canine travellers returned from their out-of-this-world missions alive and became heroes.

Soviet Space Dogs (Text by Olesya Turkina, Senior Research Fellow at the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) takes a look at canine space explorers in Soviet pop culture.

Children’s toy packaging from West Germany in the late 50s shows
 Laika, the first space dog

Illustrated by Yuri Galperin, this 1961 childrens book is titled
The Adventures of Belka and Strelka

A postcard produced in Italy around 1960 shows an image of
Kozyavka the space dog

More: theguardian.com