For 45 years, the Soviet Union told the same story: Laika had survived several days in orbit and died without pain. Millions believed it.
In October 2002, at a scientific conference in Houston, researcher Dimitri Malashenkov — who had worked on the Sputnik 2 project — presented a paper with a discreet title that concealed the full truth. The real telemetry showed that Laika’s pulse and breathing were lost between the fifth and seventh hour of flight. A failure in the thermal insulation had driven the cabin temperature up to 40 degrees. She did not die asleep or in peace: she died from the heat, alone, while the world celebrated the first living being in orbit.
Years earlier, in 1989, scientist Oleg Gazenko had already said that he regretted what had been done. Laika was a stray dog from Moscow. She decided nothing. She only trusted, as all dogs do, the hands that lifted her into that capsule with no way out.
