This is news to me, and I thought I'd share it with the world.
Do you remember your middle school history? Or even your world history? The part that covered the space race? Do you remember your history book talking about the trials conducted with animals? How the Russians and the Americans sent up animals to see if they could handle being in space before we sent up people? Do you remember Laika? Do you remember what your history text said about what happened to Laika?
If your memory is as good as mine, or you happen to have a grade-school history text in front of you, I can pretty much bet that the texts don't say anything about what happened to Laika.
The internet is a powerful tool. The other day, I looked up Laika on Wikipedia. Turns out, Sputnik II (her space vehicle) experienced an anomaly in flight that caused the temperature control to malfunction, and poor Laika died 4-7 hours after launch from overheating. Not a happy way to go.
The original plan was to have a 10 day mission, after which they would euthanize Laika with a dose of poisoned food. Still not a happy way to go, but you would think it would be better for her to be euthanized than overheated.
I guess what really riled me was that, even though they knew what the problem was, the scientists just let her overheat. And yes, I realize there's nothing I can do about it now.
The new fellow I'm dating mentioned that, having majored in software engineering, I should be more logical about the whole thing and just be OK with the fact that Laika died a horrible death. (Several days later, I'm still not OK with it) While I do think that he's serious to some extent, I also think he was trying to poke fun at my expense.
I was at Disneyland the other day, and found a great sign. There was a silhouette of Tinkerbell on it with the words: "Slow" and "Pixies at Play" on it. I mentioned to my fellow how cute I thought it was, and he said:
"I think we should send pixies up to space to conduct scientific experiments!"
3 comments:
I remember that dog, and I knew it died, I think because I watched a TV show about it, but I didn't know it got too hot, I thought it ran out of air.
We humans think of ourselves as special and above animals. Mostly because we have language, religion and we make sense out of the world. But I don't think we give animals enough credit. Clearly they enjoy life. They hurt and suffer when they are injured and they protect their young. All the things we do.
(as I say this I have a deer roast in the oven)
I recently watched the Idaho state of the state address by "Butch" Otter. He wants to open up hunting for Grey Wolves in Idaho. Perhaps they should reduce the population in some way, but I don't think allowing the public to hunt them is the way to go about it.
I don't think we should hunt what we don't eat. Here's a bad joke.
Two canibals were eating a clown. One canibal said to the other "does this taste funny to you?"
Hey . . . I like venison roast. . . .and I like that joke!
I don't like the "Let's hunt the Grey Wolf" idea. I'm biased, as wolves are one of my favorite animals, but most proponents of the "Let's hunt the Grey Wolf" idea are ranchers that are having a hard enough time keeping their cattle/sheep/etc. where they're supposed to be.
I once had a white wolf/dog mix who was one of the best pets ever. She was abused before we got her, and she really bonded to me. She had a very playful and sweet temper; I'm not sure where some people get the "all wolves are vicious man-attacking creatures" idea. Some nights when I couldn't sleep I would go sit on the porch and she would attempt to curl up in my lap. A few days before Christmas one year she broke her chain and someone shot her, even though there was no livestock in the area. It took me a long time to come to terms with that.
That is terrible that someone shot your dog.
Also interesting movie review above. I usually don't like "war" movies but Das Boot is one of my all time favorite movies. I also really liked The Pianist. (if liked is the right word for it)
There is a foreign language film nominated for an Oscar that sounds interesting called The Lives of Others, about the east German secret police the "Stasi". I listened to an interview with the director on NPR yesterday.
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