50 years ago today.

[theweaselking]

The comic is from Whispered Apologies, by qwantz

Comments

[chaosrah.livejournal.com]

=( sad

[frith]

This was a suicide mission from the outset. The ship was never intended to be recovered and within a week of reaching orbit Laika was to be fed a poison meal. She apparently died of stress and over-heating within hours of reaching orbit -- a cooling unit had failed. The ship was destroyed during re-entry 5 months later (I suppose it broke up and/or burned, like SkyLab).

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I know.

But that doesn't make for a good sad children's story.

[camilla-anna.livejournal.com]

I'm crying, you bastard. You and my PMS hormones have a LOT to answer for!

...Nice children's story, though.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Shhhhhh.

(Do you know how hard it is to find a good sad children's story today?)

Pawprints in the red sands of Mars.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

I kept waiting for "...but actually, she died painfully."

[thormation.livejournal.com]

The good news is that Laika is alive, living in Portland, and making feature films.

http://www.laika.com/entertainment/

and now, a song...

[i-scribble.livejournal.com]

When I was 3, my mother said to me
Eat up your greens and say your grace
While on TV they put a dog in space
And left her there... you shoulda seen her face (http://www.fruvous.com/barglyr.html#laika)
--Laika, Bargainville (http://www.fruvous.com/bargain.html), Moxy Fruvous (http://www.fruvous.com/)