First Animal in Orbit
- Laika was a Soviet female canine launched on 3 November 1957 on Sputnik 2. The technology to deorbit had not yet been developed, so there was no expectation for survival. She died several hours into flight.
Read more about this topic: List Of Spaceflight Records
Famous quotes containing the words animal and/or orbit:
“His reversed body gracefully curved, his brown legs hoisted like a Tarentine sail, his joined ankles tacking, Van gripped with splayed hands the brow of gravity, and moved to and fro, veering and sidestepping, opening his mouth the wrong way, and blinking in the odd bilboquet fashion peculiar to eyelids in his abnormal position. Even more extraordinary than the variety and velocity of the movements he made in imitation of animal hind legs was the effortlessness of his stance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.”
—David Lehman (b. 1948)