Muttnik: Laika’s trust
I cry over many injustices. Don’t we all?
Katrina.
People screaming in thirst and agony at the heat and lack of everything.
Even the police took off. Some.
Hours upon hours of lawlessness. Bodies on the street or floating in the bloated rivers.
Hours sweltering in the SuperDome.
Young and old alike. And Ted Koppel had to tell the head of FEMA they were there!
In the most powerful nation in the world.
Darfur.
China and Brazil.
Children starving everywhere. Little or no clean water, and little seems to be done. How is this possible?
People turned away from treatment and left to die literally because they lack the money!
The millions uninsured.
The elderly shoved to the back of society with little or no care. Thanks but no thanks. That boils my blood.
What bothers me most?
Innocence. Trust misplaced. People in power corrupted.
I was reading the Times this morning, and the celebration of the Space Program.
And there this little picture of one of my favorite dogs ever.
Laika……. Here is her little but very important life history….
“The first space dog and the first animal of any kind to travel into orbit. Laika (“Barker”), or “Muttnik” as the American press nicknamed her, was a female mongrel (mostly Siberian husky) stray, rounded up from the streets of Moscow, who flew aboard Sputnik 2. No provision was made for her safe return and Soviet authorities claimed that Laika died painlessly after a week in orbit when her air supply ran out. However, new evidence in 2002 revealed that the dog died from over-heating and panic just a few hours after take-off. Four decades after Laika’s flight, the Russians unveiled a memorial to her – a plaque at the Moscow research center where she was trained.”
As the footage shows of her launch into space, the odd effect of the camera viewing the launch caused the capsule to have a double exposure. Corny yes, but hey, this is an emotional story. It looks like a cross as it lifts off with this little victim. I ask you what were they thinking? Do you think they thought at all?
This story of the Russian puppy seized off a street in Moscow, trained for twenty days to withstand weightlessness. Cramped environments.
3 years old. Then launched into space. and. left. there.
She did her part. Man didn’t. The scientist who sent her there now REGRETS that he let her die. “We didn’t get enough information from this launch to justify the death of that little dog” Can you imagine?
On the day I was born in 1958 this little animal’s body came back into earth’s atmosphere after over 2,000 orbits with Sputnik2’s re-entry and was either burned up or destroyed.
The truth of this little being was not known for years, they said they would poison the dog after a few days in space, as they hadn’t thought about the retrieval yet!
She in fact passed away from stress and overheating. After five to seven hours. Thank God. I hope it was so fast, and not fast enough anyway.
Get involved in some ways, screaming against the unjust. There is a lot to think upon.
The ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Global warming. Alternative energy.
Let something be important that is.
End of sermon.
(breathing)
A little photo in remembrance of this “Little Curly” as her real name meant.
She touches me.
