21/06/2025
🚀🐾 67 Years Since Laika Left Earth
Every autumn, I return to this story — not out of nostalgia, or wonder, or even scientific pride.
But out of guilt. Out of reverence.
Laika was not an experiment.
She was life.
She was presence.
She was innocence given over to the unknown.
Her real name was Kudrjavka — “Curly” in Russian.
But the world came to know her as Laika — “The Barker.”
A stray. Half Husky, half Terrier.
Chosen not because she volunteered, but because she survived the cold Moscow streets.
As if that made her more fit to die alone in space.
On November 3, 1957, at 2 a.m., Laika was launched aboard Sputnik 2.
She had food. Water. Padding.
But there was no plan to bring her home.
She survived — some say 7 hours, others say 4 days.
Alone. Silent. Floating above a planet that grew ever smaller beneath her.
She orbited Earth 2,570 times before her capsule finally disintegrated on April 14, 1958.
She did not ask to be a symbol.
She did not choose to represent progress.
She was just a dog.
Looking for warmth.
And used as a tool.
Laika, we remember you — not as a marvel of science, but as a reminder:
Not all progress is innocent.
And not all sacrifices were given freely.
We speak your name so that we never forget —
what we did,
why we did it,
and why we must never do it again.
🖤
