08/19/2026
Look how far we have come indeed!
August 19 - on this day in 1960, the Soviet Union launched the Korabl-Sputnik 2 mission (known as Sputnik 5 in the West) on a Vostok rocket out of Baikonur.
The spacecraft carried two dogs (Belka and Strelka), forty mice, two rats and a variety of plants, as well as a television camera. It was the first spaceflight in human history to launch animals to space and return them safely back to Earth 21 hours later.
The picture shows the Korabl-Sputnik 2 landing capsule and the bodies of Strelka and Belka (preserved via taxidermy after the dogs' deaths) at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow.
Photo credit: Viktorya Polyanskaya for Wikimedia Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)
