After the 1960 mission, Belka actually had a pretty good life. She returned safely, lived under the care of Soviet scientists in decent conditions. She became somewhat famous in the USSR as one of the first animals to orbit Earth and survive, so she was shown in media and public exhibitions from time to time. Scientists continued to monitor her health to study long-term effects of spaceflight, but otherwise she lived a normal, calm life. She eventually died of old age, which is honestly one of the rare happy endings in early space-race animal history.
mamut2000 on
The English transcription of Russian language is sometimes so weird. It’s more like Byewka, not Belka.
AVeryFineUsername on
Sadly the first dog to orbit the earth, Laika, was killed during the mission as the soviets had not yet developed a reentry capability.
TransitionSecret4007 on
Just in case somebody doesn’t know, belka is squirrel in Russian😂😂
NearlyHeadlessLaban on
The dog is thinking “whelp at least it’s not a cone.”
haruku63 on
Saw her preserved as a stuffed animal years ago in Moscow in the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. Together with Strelka.
Lira_Iorin on
That helmet is just too cute. When they were designing and making it they must have gone “awwww” occasionally, or its time-period russian equivalent.
8 Comments
Didn’t it get dissected after this?
After the 1960 mission, Belka actually had a pretty good life. She returned safely, lived under the care of Soviet scientists in decent conditions. She became somewhat famous in the USSR as one of the first animals to orbit Earth and survive, so she was shown in media and public exhibitions from time to time. Scientists continued to monitor her health to study long-term effects of spaceflight, but otherwise she lived a normal, calm life. She eventually died of old age, which is honestly one of the rare happy endings in early space-race animal history.
The English transcription of Russian language is sometimes so weird. It’s more like Byewka, not Belka.
Sadly the first dog to orbit the earth, Laika, was killed during the mission as the soviets had not yet developed a reentry capability.
Just in case somebody doesn’t know, belka is squirrel in Russian😂😂
The dog is thinking “whelp at least it’s not a cone.”
Saw her preserved as a stuffed animal years ago in Moscow in the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. Together with Strelka.
That helmet is just too cute. When they were designing and making it they must have gone “awwww” occasionally, or its time-period russian equivalent.