A monument to the space dog will appear in Moscow

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

The legendary dog Laika, launched into space on an artificial earth satellite on November 3, 1957, will be cast in bronze and will soon decorate one of Moscow's streets. It is already known that the monument to the animal will be erected not far from the Dynamo stadium.

"The initiative to erect a monument to Laika came from the scientists of the institute, which was preparing a space experiment with her participation. Laika was the first living being in space. Her flight was to prove that one can live in zero gravity," said the head of the Research Test of the Center for Aerospace Medicine and Military Ergonomics of the State Research Institute of Military Medicine of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Mikhail Khomenko, who told that not so long ago a monument to the dog Zvezdochka was erected in Izhevsk, which flew into space and returned safely to Earth.

Laika, unlike Zvezdochka, as you know, did not return alive from space, since she was the first dog sent to conquer the unexplored heavenly expanses. “Her apparatus was not equipped with a recoverable module,” Mikhail Khomenko explained the details of the experiment. However, without Laika's flight, the legendary flight of Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, which marked the beginning of Russia's space history, would not have taken place.

The bronze monument to Laika the dog will be unveiled on November 3, 2007, on the day of the 50th anniversary of the launch of the satellite with Laika on board. "The monument will be located next to the Dynamo metro station, on the territory adjacent to our institute from the Petrovsko-Razumovskaya alley," Mikhail Khomenko said.