This article always makes me sad. These dogs have an affinity for and trust their humans only to be sent off and get exploded, crashed onto the surface of the Earth, or starved of oxygen. I can't imagine what's going through their minds when they head out.
When I went there was a dog lying on the floor which I assumed was stuffed. While I was looking at the exhibit it got up and started walking around which scared the shit out of me.
The MJT is a bizarre place but 100% worth visiting.
"All the Universe is full of the life of perfect creatures"
Those two pictures of Belka and Strelka are really of those two dogs, taxidermied and placed in the space museum in Moscow with their capsule between them. The crate or living quarters they rode in is also in the museum, in a different room.
Amazing museum by the way, housed in the base of a sculpture of a soaring rocket!
My ex (German) had a dog named Laika when she was small and I knew a couple of Laikas in India as a kid -- presumably they were born around the time of Sputnik 2 (I was born after humans had already made the trip so these dogs were my elders).
Well an English bulldog I know thinks that 20 meters are exhausting and fulfilling walk. Good enough for a whole day. The only time that dog spends some energy is when he has to chew some expensive item into kindling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments
There's also an excellent comic about Laika: https://www.amazon.com/Laika-Nick-Abadzis/dp/1596431016
http://mjt.org/recentaddtions/creatures.html
The MJT is a bizarre place but 100% worth visiting.
"All the Universe is full of the life of perfect creatures"
http://fuel-design.com/publishing/soviet-space-dogs/
Highly recommended, though also as others have pointed out quite sad.
Amazing museum by the way, housed in the base of a sculpture of a soaring rocket!
Just last week, I was looking for Belka and Strelka t-shirts.
I have a dog named Laika.
Wow, 2 plus 2 really did equal 5 for Soviet apparatchiks!