1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,400
Speaker 1: Nothing's better than feeling comfortable in your own shoes. Maybe

2
00:00:03,400 --> 00:00:05,760
Speaker 1: you're a parent raising a little rock star, or a

3
00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:08,560
Speaker 1: tech nomad working from anywhere. All Birds wants you to

4
00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:11,719
Speaker 1: be comfortable in your actual shoes too. They're wool runners,

5
00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:15,000
Speaker 1: pipers and loungers are so cozy you might forget you're

6
00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:18,160
Speaker 1: wearing them, and they're crafted from natural materials that tread

7
00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:21,119
Speaker 1: lightly on our planet. So get comfortable in your shoes.

8
00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:24,480
Speaker 1: Get to know the wool runners, pipers and loungers at

9
00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:40,159
Speaker 1: albirds dot com. That's alllbi rds dot com. Welcome to

10
00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:44,920
Speaker 1: Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClean smith, where for the

11
00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:47,360
Speaker 1: weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that,

12
00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:50,040
Speaker 1: for one reason or other, didn't make it into the show.

13
00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:54,640
Speaker 1: In last week's episode, Coming to You Live, we learned

14
00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:58,040
Speaker 1: briefly about the launch of the Telstar satellite, which in

15
00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:03,000
Speaker 1: July nineteen sixty two became the world's first active communication satellite,

16
00:01:03,280 --> 00:01:08,000
Speaker 1: propelling us into a new media age of instantaneous global communication.

17
00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:12,400
Speaker 1: The satellite was just one of an extraordinary array of

18
00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,360
Speaker 1: space firsts for humanity, which had begun with the world's

19
00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:22,200
Speaker 1: first artificial satellite, Sputnik I in nineteen fifty seven, and

20
00:01:22,360 --> 00:01:26,520
Speaker 1: was followed soon after by cosmonaut Yuri Gagerin, becoming the

21
00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:30,600
Speaker 1: first human in outer space in nineteen sixty one. Two

22
00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:35,319
Speaker 1: years later, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space,

23
00:01:36,080 --> 00:01:39,920
Speaker 1: and only five years after that, Neil Armstrong of Nassa's

24
00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:43,959
Speaker 1: Apollo eleven mission achieved the ultimate prize of becoming the

25
00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:49,360
Speaker 1: first human to step foot on the Moon. The moments

26
00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:53,960
Speaker 1: symbolized by Gagerin and Armstrong are simply seismic achievements in

27
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:58,080
Speaker 1: the annals of human history, and however future historians choose

28
00:01:58,120 --> 00:02:01,680
Speaker 1: to condense our present age, their names are unlikely to

29
00:02:01,760 --> 00:02:05,840
Speaker 1: ever be excluded from the retelling of it. What is

30
00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:09,200
Speaker 1: less well known, however, is the story of those other

31
00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:13,440
Speaker 1: animals who helped them, and one in particular who became

32
00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:17,760
Speaker 1: the first sentient creature to orbit the Earth, A stray

33
00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:21,639
Speaker 1: dog plucked from the streets of Moscow that beat them all.

34
00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:33,560
Speaker 1: This is her story. Though serious plans to put a

35
00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:36,920
Speaker 1: human in space were circulating among rocket scientists in the

36
00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:40,600
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, it wasn't until the development of the

37
00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:44,240
Speaker 1: Fowls Vye rocket, also known as v two during the

38
00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:47,680
Speaker 1: Second World War that it started to be considered as

39
00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:53,920
Speaker 1: a genuine possibility. A team led by genius aerospace engineer

40
00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:57,680
Speaker 1: Erna von Braun had developed the rocket for use by

41
00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:02,080
Speaker 1: the military of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. It isn't clear

42
00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:06,040
Speaker 1: just how supportive von Braun had been of Hitler, However,

43
00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:09,160
Speaker 1: there is little doubt that his interest in rockets had

44
00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:13,240
Speaker 1: only ever been for use in space travel, remarking dryly

45
00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:16,560
Speaker 1: when first hearing news of the V two's successful deployment

46
00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:20,640
Speaker 1: in London that the rocket had worked perfectly well, with

47
00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:25,280
Speaker 1: the exception of having landed on the wrong planet. In

48
00:03:25,320 --> 00:03:27,880
Speaker 1: the aftermath of the defeat of the Third Reich and

49
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:32,400
Speaker 1: Hitler's German National Socialist Workers Party, the United States and

50
00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:36,920
Speaker 1: Soviet Union's governments, whose own forays into rocket technology lagged

51
00:03:36,960 --> 00:03:40,960
Speaker 1: hopelessly behind von Braun's, soon found themselves in possession of

52
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:45,320
Speaker 1: a superior weapon they didn't understand. But who better to

53
00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:48,960
Speaker 1: help decipher it than the scientists who built it themselves,

54
00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:53,360
Speaker 1: proving that all is indeed fair in love and war.

55
00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:57,440
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty six, the two governments launched the two

56
00:03:57,480 --> 00:04:02,160
Speaker 1: secret operations of paper Clip and so Aviakim that sought

57
00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:05,160
Speaker 1: to take the best German science had to offer and

58
00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:09,760
Speaker 1: put them to work on their own weapons development. The

59
00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:13,320
Speaker 1: biggest catch of them all, Von Braun was adopted by

60
00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:18,320
Speaker 1: the United States, with his program manager Helmut Gertrup going

61
00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:21,760
Speaker 1: the other way and placed under the watchful eye of

62
00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:28,359
Speaker 1: Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolev. Though Korolev realized almost immediately

63
00:04:28,839 --> 00:04:32,240
Speaker 1: the potential that their newly acquired rocket technology offered for

64
00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:37,920
Speaker 1: space exploration, the Stalin led Communist Party, understandably rattled by

65
00:04:37,960 --> 00:04:41,520
Speaker 1: the recent US deployment of the atomic bomb, preferred to

66
00:04:41,640 --> 00:04:44,240
Speaker 1: focus their efforts on their use in the deployment of

67
00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:48,880
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. However, with the announcement in nineteen fifty four

68
00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:52,040
Speaker 1: of the US Army and Navy's plan to launch the

69
00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:57,320
Speaker 1: world's first artificial satellite, the space race was born, and

70
00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:01,239
Speaker 1: though launching a satellite would be the first prize, true

71
00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:04,720
Speaker 1: mastery of the cosmos would only be demonstrated by the

72
00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:09,839
Speaker 1: nation that could first put a human up there. Planning

73
00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:13,880
Speaker 1: to launch someone into space was one thing. Doing it, however,

74
00:05:14,279 --> 00:05:19,840
Speaker 1: was quite another matter. Entirely, the first issue was one

75
00:05:19,880 --> 00:05:24,599
Speaker 1: of sheer durability. When the first V two rockets, which

76
00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:26,920
Speaker 1: traveled at three and a half thousand miles per hour

77
00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:31,000
Speaker 1: were launched. The fastest a human had ever traveled relative

78
00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 1: to the Earth was three hundred and ninety four miles

79
00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:39,600
Speaker 1: per hour. To achieve orbital velocity, however, would require having

80
00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:43,800
Speaker 1: to reach a speed somewhere closer to seventeen thousand miles

81
00:05:43,880 --> 00:05:47,880
Speaker 1: per hour. It wasn't even known if the human body

82
00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:52,120
Speaker 1: could withstand such a thing, and it was decided that

83
00:05:52,279 --> 00:06:02,640
Speaker 1: there was only one way to find out. In the

84
00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:07,400
Speaker 1: US spearheaded by the U. S. Army Air Corps, Project Albert,

85
00:06:07,560 --> 00:06:10,720
Speaker 1: became the first in a series of experiments designed to

86
00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:14,239
Speaker 1: test the physiological impact of space travel on the body.

87
00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:18,640
Speaker 1: Being unwilling to risk the lies of human test subjects,

88
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:21,760
Speaker 1: they alighted on the use of recess monkeys for the

89
00:06:21,839 --> 00:06:26,239
Speaker 1: task instead, and so it was that, on eleventh June

90
00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:29,760
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, at the White Sand's Missile Range in

91
00:06:29,839 --> 00:06:33,520
Speaker 1: New Mexico, Albert one became the first of what we

92
00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:37,720
Speaker 1: might clumsily describe as an animal of higher learning launched

93
00:06:37,760 --> 00:06:42,600
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere in the name of scientific progress. The

94
00:06:42,760 --> 00:06:46,120
Speaker 1: plan was to have Albert launched and returned to Earth safely,

95
00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:50,200
Speaker 1: provided he survived the flight via a parachute linked to

96
00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:55,080
Speaker 1: a detachable compartment of the rocket's nose cone. An ECG

97
00:06:55,279 --> 00:06:59,120
Speaker 1: needle and respiration unit was stitched directly into his skin

98
00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:03,360
Speaker 1: to monitor vital science before he, with his body having

99
00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:06,800
Speaker 1: been stretched out and arms strapped to his side, was

100
00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:11,160
Speaker 1: placed head first into a cylindrical container measuring roughly three

101
00:07:11,200 --> 00:07:15,200
Speaker 1: foot by one foot in size, and then installed into

102
00:07:15,280 --> 00:07:20,520
Speaker 1: the nose cone of a modified fee To rocket. To

103
00:07:20,640 --> 00:07:23,360
Speaker 1: give them the best chance of achieving some useful results

104
00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:28,239
Speaker 1: from the experiment, the scientists anastatized Albert forty five minutes

105
00:07:28,280 --> 00:07:31,400
Speaker 1: before the flight in order to prevent him from waking

106
00:07:31,520 --> 00:07:36,560
Speaker 1: up and dying of shock during takeoff, then promptly launched

107
00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:39,600
Speaker 1: him at thousands of miles an hour into the air.

108
00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:45,720
Speaker 1: Due to a slight malfunction and premature burnout, the rocket

109
00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:49,240
Speaker 1: only reached thirty seven miles in height before the nose

110
00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:53,800
Speaker 1: cone detached, sending Albert hurtling back down toward the Earth

111
00:07:54,480 --> 00:08:00,720
Speaker 1: at terminal velocity. A further malfunction prevented the parachute from

112
00:08:00,760 --> 00:08:04,000
Speaker 1: opening until the device was only twenty five thousand feet

113
00:08:04,160 --> 00:08:07,760
Speaker 1: above the Earth's surface, by which point the sheer speed

114
00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:13,040
Speaker 1: of the vehicle rendered the parachute completely useless. Seconds later,

115
00:08:13,840 --> 00:08:17,960
Speaker 1: the nose cone containing Albert was obliterated on impact with

116
00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:22,960
Speaker 1: the desert sands. There was no chance of survival, though

117
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,960
Speaker 1: it was later suggested that due to the cramped conditions

118
00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:29,480
Speaker 1: in the nose cone, Albert had in fact already suffocated

119
00:08:30,040 --> 00:08:35,640
Speaker 1: some time before take off. The following year, Albert two

120
00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:39,440
Speaker 1: became the first monkey in space after his rocket made

121
00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:43,000
Speaker 1: it beyond the sixty two mile high Carmen Line, commonly

122
00:08:43,080 --> 00:08:46,600
Speaker 1: considered the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space.

123
00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:51,400
Speaker 1: Albert two was propelled to roughly eighty three miles above

124
00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:55,840
Speaker 1: the Earth before another parachute malfunction cost him his life.

125
00:09:04,080 --> 00:09:07,760
Speaker 1: In the Soviet Union, it was decided instead to use

126
00:09:07,920 --> 00:09:11,440
Speaker 1: dogs for the purpose of space research, due in part

127
00:09:11,679 --> 00:09:14,600
Speaker 1: to the abundance of strays roaming the streets of Moscow.

128
00:09:16,120 --> 00:09:19,000
Speaker 1: Stray dogs also had the added bonus of hardy and

129
00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:22,679
Speaker 1: resilient natures built up through a lifetime of survival on

130
00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:28,400
Speaker 1: the often harsh and unforgiving streets. In nineteen fifty a

131
00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:32,240
Speaker 1: kennel was built at the USSR Air Forces Institute of

132
00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:36,840
Speaker 1: Aviation medicine in Moscow, and soon after filled with hapless

133
00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:41,200
Speaker 1: canines looking out with concerned curiosity at the strange new

134
00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:45,040
Speaker 1: world they had found themselves in, oblivious to the horrors

135
00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:49,520
Speaker 1: that were shortly to come. The institute, led by doctor

136
00:09:49,559 --> 00:09:53,240
Speaker 1: Vladimir Yazdovsky, at the sole purpose of training the dogs

137
00:09:53,280 --> 00:09:59,080
Speaker 1: for space flight, and the criteria was simple. Suitable candidates

138
00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:02,840
Speaker 1: had to be small, weighing between thirteen to sixteen pounds

139
00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:07,679
Speaker 1: and between eighteen months and six years in age. It

140
00:10:07,880 --> 00:10:10,959
Speaker 1: was also important that the dogs had light fur so

141
00:10:11,160 --> 00:10:15,480
Speaker 1: their movements could be more easily tracked on film. Lastly,

142
00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:18,959
Speaker 1: in the main only female dogs were considered due to

143
00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:23,480
Speaker 1: the difficulties of attaching the specially designed sanitary devices required

144
00:10:23,520 --> 00:10:28,600
Speaker 1: for journeying in the rockets to males. First, the dogs

145
00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:32,040
Speaker 1: were put through a series of endurance tests, beginning with

146
00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:37,400
Speaker 1: measuring their ability to withstand prolonged confinement. This involved a

147
00:10:37,400 --> 00:10:40,559
Speaker 1: little more than being placed in a restraining suit and

148
00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:46,400
Speaker 1: locked inside a small box for four hours at a time. Next,

149
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:50,360
Speaker 1: they would be placed in centrifuge machines and propelled at speed,

150
00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:54,280
Speaker 1: subjecting them to the forces of gravity five times above

151
00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:57,679
Speaker 1: the norm, as they might experience during a rocket to

152
00:10:57,760 --> 00:11:01,679
Speaker 1: take off. Further tests were then conducted on how well

153
00:11:01,720 --> 00:11:05,640
Speaker 1: the dogs fared under weightlessness and extremes of atmospheric pressure,

154
00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:09,599
Speaker 1: before finally they would be placed in simulations of the

155
00:11:09,679 --> 00:11:13,520
Speaker 1: cacophonous and violent conditions of takeoff to see if they

156
00:11:13,559 --> 00:11:18,959
Speaker 1: could handle the stress of it. With testing completed, the

157
00:11:19,120 --> 00:11:23,480
Speaker 1: dogs were divided into three distinct personality groups from even

158
00:11:23,559 --> 00:11:27,800
Speaker 1: tempered to restless and sluggish, which in turn would help

159
00:11:27,840 --> 00:11:30,360
Speaker 1: to decide if they were best suited to being strictly

160
00:11:30,480 --> 00:11:33,559
Speaker 1: rocket dogs, meaning they would only ever be used in

161
00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:37,679
Speaker 1: short test flights, or if they would be elevated to

162
00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:41,960
Speaker 1: the status of satellite dogs, dogs that were considered strong

163
00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:49,280
Speaker 1: enough to survive in space. Are you always taking care

164
00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:51,800
Speaker 1: of your family? Do you often take care of others

165
00:11:51,880 --> 00:11:55,200
Speaker 1: and not yourself. Now it's time to take care of yourself,

166
00:11:55,600 --> 00:11:58,839
Speaker 1: to make time for you. You deserve it. Tele a

167
00:11:58,920 --> 00:12:01,839
Speaker 1: doc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help

168
00:12:01,880 --> 00:12:04,480
Speaker 1: you get back to feeling your best to feeling like

169
00:12:04,640 --> 00:12:08,520
Speaker 1: yourself again. With TELEDOC, you can speak to a licensed

170
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:12,640
Speaker 1: therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven

171
00:12:12,720 --> 00:12:15,840
Speaker 1: days a week from seven am to nine pm. Local time.

172
00:12:16,400 --> 00:12:20,880
Speaker 1: If you feel overwhelmed. Sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious,

173
00:12:21,240 --> 00:12:24,240
Speaker 1: depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a

174
00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:29,000
Speaker 1: personal or family issue, teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed

175
00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:32,680
Speaker 1: to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy

176
00:12:32,760 --> 00:12:37,120
Speaker 1: to change counselors if needed. For free teledoc therapy is

177
00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:41,319
Speaker 1: available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or

178
00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:45,679
Speaker 1: visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained podcast today to

179
00:12:45,800 --> 00:12:57,880
Speaker 1: get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained podcast. In

180
00:12:57,960 --> 00:13:01,920
Speaker 1: the winter of nineteen fifty, doctor Yazdovski was informed by

181
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:06,160
Speaker 1: Sergei Korolev that the first biological launches would take place

182
00:13:06,400 --> 00:13:10,360
Speaker 1: the following summer. The time had come to select the

183
00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:14,280
Speaker 1: dogs for it, with a launch date of twenty second

184
00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:19,520
Speaker 1: July nineteen fifty one confirmed. Two dogs named Seagan and

185
00:13:19,640 --> 00:13:23,680
Speaker 1: Debt Sick emerged as leading candidates to withstand the rigors

186
00:13:23,720 --> 00:13:28,720
Speaker 1: of the flight. By this point, the US had conducted

187
00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:33,439
Speaker 1: five monkey lead biological space test flights, and all of

188
00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:36,680
Speaker 1: them had resulted in the death of the test subject,

189
00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:41,120
Speaker 1: and so it was in the early hours of July

190
00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:46,520
Speaker 1: twenty second at the kapustin Ya rocket launch site, located

191
00:13:46,760 --> 00:13:50,559
Speaker 1: seventy five miles to the east of Stalingrad, that Seagan

192
00:13:50,679 --> 00:13:55,319
Speaker 1: and Detzik were placed in their oxygenated flight capsule, and,

193
00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:58,679
Speaker 1: after receiving a pat on the head by doctor Yazdovsky,

194
00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:01,959
Speaker 1: were sealed in and loaded into the nose of the

195
00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:07,959
Speaker 1: Soviet Arwan rocket. A number of scientists, party member dignitaries,

196
00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,520
Speaker 1: and military personnel gathered to watch as the rocket took off,

197
00:14:13,160 --> 00:14:16,640
Speaker 1: all waiting with bated breath to observe the fate of

198
00:14:16,760 --> 00:14:24,080
Speaker 1: the two dogs. Moments later, a small tubular object was

199
00:14:24,120 --> 00:14:27,480
Speaker 1: spotted high up in the sky, tumbling through the air

200
00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:32,680
Speaker 1: at speed, with no sign of a parachute. The crowd

201
00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:36,240
Speaker 1: gasped in horror as the object crashed into the ground

202
00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:42,960
Speaker 1: in a sudden blaze of light. But then something else appeared,

203
00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:48,840
Speaker 1: this time conical in shape, falling through the sky before

204
00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:53,040
Speaker 1: being suddenly slowed down by a vast parachute ballooning open

205
00:14:53,280 --> 00:14:59,040
Speaker 1: from behind it. Yazdovsky raced the nearest jeep and sped

206
00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:01,640
Speaker 1: off in the direct of the cone that had now

207
00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:06,720
Speaker 1: landed a few miles away, bursting open the hatch. Moments later,

208
00:15:07,280 --> 00:15:11,040
Speaker 1: he found the two dogs a little shaken but otherwise unharmed,

209
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:15,160
Speaker 1: staring up at him with their tongues wagging and panting hard.

210
00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:19,960
Speaker 1: Seagan and Debt Sick had become the first animals of

211
00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:26,360
Speaker 1: their kind ever to survive a rocket flight. Sadly, however,

212
00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:30,040
Speaker 1: Debt six's participation in the space program would be short

213
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:33,400
Speaker 1: lived when, on her second flight the following week, in

214
00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:38,400
Speaker 1: tandem with another dog named Lisa, their capsule parachute didn't deploy.

215
00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:44,920
Speaker 1: On hearing the news, Anna Tolly Blagmrovov, another leading Soviet

216
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:48,920
Speaker 1: space scientist of the time, released Seagan from the program

217
00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:54,240
Speaker 1: and adopted her as his pet. Over the next two months,

218
00:15:54,720 --> 00:15:57,640
Speaker 1: a total of nine dogs flew on six flights, but

219
00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:02,000
Speaker 1: only five of them would survive the speriments. But over

220
00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:05,920
Speaker 1: the next few years, focus again turned toward the manufacture

221
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:10,000
Speaker 1: of evermore powerful rockets, and though the Space doc program

222
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:14,080
Speaker 1: continued to provide useful information, there were no plans to

223
00:16:14,160 --> 00:16:17,800
Speaker 1: do anything more sophisticated than what had previously been achieved.

224
00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:22,760
Speaker 1: All that changed, however, when on the fourth of October

225
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:27,080
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven, the Soviet Union stunned the world by

226
00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:32,840
Speaker 1: announcing the successful launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite.

227
00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:39,280
Speaker 1: Nikita Krushchev, the first secretary of the Communist Party, was

228
00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:43,040
Speaker 1: so flattered by the global response to the achievement that

229
00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:46,920
Speaker 1: he suggested the party capitalize on the attention by launching

230
00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:50,359
Speaker 1: a second satellite on the anniversary of the Great October

231
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:54,200
Speaker 1: Socialist Revolution that was due to take place just over

232
00:16:54,320 --> 00:17:00,320
Speaker 1: a month later on November seventh. Sir Guy Karlov, equally

233
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:03,160
Speaker 1: caught up in the excitement of it all, had a

234
00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:06,800
Speaker 1: better idea. Why not launch a dog with it to

235
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:10,120
Speaker 1: two and become the first nation to put a living

236
00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:22,399
Speaker 1: creature into orbit. With the stakes now significantly higher, training

237
00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:27,040
Speaker 1: at the kennel was intensified accordingly. Where before the dogs

238
00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:29,840
Speaker 1: were assessed on their ability to withstand four hours in

239
00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:34,280
Speaker 1: a confined space, now they had to endure twenty days.

240
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:39,840
Speaker 1: Only ten dogs successfully passed the test, which were then

241
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:44,520
Speaker 1: whittled down to six before finally one candidate emerged above

242
00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:51,600
Speaker 1: all others, a small white mongrel named Albina. However, since

243
00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:54,960
Speaker 1: Albina had already flown two missions and had just given

244
00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:58,359
Speaker 1: birth to a litter of puppies, the team decided that

245
00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:01,800
Speaker 1: she had already done enough and so the next best

246
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:06,480
Speaker 1: candidate was chosen, a two year old husky mix weighing

247
00:18:06,560 --> 00:18:10,320
Speaker 1: no more than thirteen pounds with a distinctive white line

248
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:14,240
Speaker 1: running down the middle of her black furred face, called

249
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:20,920
Speaker 1: Kudriavka or little curly. Shortly after her selection, however, the

250
00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:24,440
Speaker 1: team became fond of her distinctive bark and so she

251
00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:29,240
Speaker 1: was given the name Lycha instead, which translates loosely to

252
00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:34,200
Speaker 1: barker in Russian. With less than two weeks to go

253
00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:39,680
Speaker 1: to the launch, doctor Yazdovski's team set about Preparinglya's body

254
00:18:40,160 --> 00:18:44,000
Speaker 1: for the momentous flight. To be able to record her

255
00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:47,680
Speaker 1: blood pressure, her carrottid artery was pulled from out of

256
00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:50,720
Speaker 1: the neck and her skin cut in such a way

257
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:53,480
Speaker 1: as to allow the artery to remain on the outside

258
00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:57,359
Speaker 1: of her body. It would then be compressed periodically by

259
00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:02,520
Speaker 1: an inflated rubber ball in order to take measurement. Silver

260
00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:06,160
Speaker 1: electrodes one fifth of an inch in diameter were then

261
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:10,240
Speaker 1: inserted just beneath her skin to monitor her heart, with

262
00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:14,400
Speaker 1: the connecting wires also under the skin, being threaded along

263
00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:17,919
Speaker 1: her back and emerging on the outside of both sides

264
00:19:17,960 --> 00:19:23,520
Speaker 1: of her spine. By twenty seventh of October, news of

265
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:26,720
Speaker 1: Lica's impending mission was beginning to filter around the world.

266
00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:32,080
Speaker 1: Later that afternoon, Lyka captured the hearts of the nation

267
00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:35,400
Speaker 1: when she was heard barking in response to questions from

268
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:39,560
Speaker 1: a reporter from Radio Moscow, but few were aware of

269
00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:43,359
Speaker 1: the implications of the mission, for this was not a

270
00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:48,280
Speaker 1: two way trip. Realizing she had only dazed to live,

271
00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:52,280
Speaker 1: doctor Yazdovski took like a home to visit his family,

272
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:55,520
Speaker 1: where she played with his children for a number of hours.

273
00:19:57,240 --> 00:20:00,159
Speaker 1: The following day, she was placed on a flight to

274
00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:04,760
Speaker 1: the bacon Or Cosmodrome, a remote spaceport located in the

275
00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:10,160
Speaker 1: South Kazakhstan desert. At ten a m on the morning

276
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,720
Speaker 1: of October thirty. First, Lyca was taken for a walk,

277
00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:18,040
Speaker 1: then afterwards had her wounds, still raw from the insertion

278
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:23,480
Speaker 1: of the electrodes coated in iodine. Twelve censes in total

279
00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 1: were applied to her body and her sanitation device fitted

280
00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:32,680
Speaker 1: before being strapped into her vest and harness. At two

281
00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:36,520
Speaker 1: p m. Food was placed in the feeding device, designed

282
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:39,399
Speaker 1: to release only one load to last as long as

283
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:44,080
Speaker 1: would be required, after which Lyca was placed into the

284
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:49,520
Speaker 1: rocket capsule in between two large cushions. Calmly, she lay

285
00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:52,320
Speaker 1: down on her front paws and watched the people in

286
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:55,359
Speaker 1: white coats as they lowered the heat shield into place

287
00:20:55,600 --> 00:21:01,080
Speaker 1: above her. Finally, they sealed up the capsule, leaving its

288
00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:05,360
Speaker 1: one porthole window located just above her head. The capsule

289
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:08,320
Speaker 1: was then in turn fixed into place at the very

290
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:11,600
Speaker 1: top of an R seven rocket and left for three

291
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:16,320
Speaker 1: days while Lyca's vital signs were monitored. For the next

292
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:19,840
Speaker 1: seventy two hours, she looked up with the same quizzical

293
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:24,000
Speaker 1: expression whenever a white coated human peered in through the

294
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:30,280
Speaker 1: porthole window, until finally the moment had arrived. At five

295
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:35,199
Speaker 1: thirty am Moscow time on Sunday third of November nineteen

296
00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:40,760
Speaker 1: fifty seven, Lyca, along with a Sputnik two satellite, was

297
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:52,240
Speaker 1: blasted into space. Human beings start to experience severe pain

298
00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:56,880
Speaker 1: and hearing loss. At one hundred and forty descerbels inside

299
00:21:56,920 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 1: her capsule, Lyca would have endured some and closer to

300
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 1: two hundred decibels. This, coupled with the stress of enduring

301
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 1: five times the force of gravity, sent her heart rate

302
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 1: racing to two hundred and sixty bpm, three times the norm,

303
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:17,280
Speaker 1: and her breathing also quickened to four times the usual amount.

304
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 1: Eight minutes later, having in that time traveled from nought

305
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:25,520
Speaker 1: to seventeen and a half a thousand miles per hour,

306
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 1: Lyca reached the Carman line only a few minutes after that.

307
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 1: Having reached the orbiting height of one hundred and forty

308
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 1: miles above the Earth, the nose cone detached and the

309
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 1: first telemetry signals were received at mission control. Lyca was

310
00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:49,200
Speaker 1: alive and floating in space, the first living creature of

311
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:54,959
Speaker 1: Earth in orbit. The capsule would eventually settle, traveling at

312
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: a speed of five miles per second as it made

313
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: its first complete orbit of the globe in roughly one

314
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 1: hundred and three minutes. However, with the capsule only traveling

315
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:09,359
Speaker 1: across Soviet airspace for fifteen minutes of that circuit, they

316
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,560
Speaker 1: had only that window of time to access data, and

317
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to the rest of the world, it had become

318
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:20,640
Speaker 1: quickly apparent that something inside the capsule was drastically wrong.

319
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 1: Later that day, on November third, putting aside any diplomatic differences,

320
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: the front page of The New York Times triumphantly hailed

321
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: Soviet fire's new satellite carrying dog. Articles released the following

322
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 1: day even went as far as to suggest that Lycha

323
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:43,199
Speaker 1: could even be recovered from the flight and brought safely

324
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:47,240
Speaker 1: back to Worth, and articles from as late as the

325
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: seventh of November indicated that doctor Yazdovsky's team were still

326
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 1: receiving signs of life from the dog, but soon with

327
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 1: journalists noting that Lyca was no longer being mentioned in

328
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: a fish or communications, the sad truth was beginning to

329
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 1: dawn that she had in fact been dead for four days,

330
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 1: suffocated by a defect in the capsule that allowed the

331
00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 1: temperature inside to soar above a hundred degrees fahrenheit. Just

332
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: after midnight on April fourteenth, nineteen fifty eight, a series

333
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: of UFO sightings were reported along the East coast of

334
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:37,680
Speaker 1: the United States. As was documented by Paul Dixon in

335
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 1: Sputnik The Shock of the Century, a bluish white object

336
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 1: had been seen traveling across the sky at lightning speed,

337
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:50,440
Speaker 1: before suddenly turning red and separating into several smaller objects.

338
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: What had in fact been witnessed was the reentry into

339
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: the Earth's atmosphere of the capsule carrying the Sputnik to

340
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: satellite the dead body of Lyca before its eventual disintegration.

341
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: Three years later, on the twelfth of April nineteen sixty one,

342
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: Yuri Gagarin became the second animal to orbit the Earth.

343
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,439
Speaker 1: Scientist Oleg Gatzenko, who had worked on the like A launch,

344
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: would later muse that the more time passed, the more

345
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: he was sorry about her death, and that we didn't

346
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: learn enough from the mission to justify it. And yet

347
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: within this statement lie deeper, complex and often troubling questions

348
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 1: about these types of experiments. Some will argue that no

349
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:48,400
Speaker 1: animal should ever be sacrificed or forced to endure such suffering,

350
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 1: that only consenting human volunteers or synthetic means should be

351
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 1: used to collect the necessary information. Others might argue, however,

352
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: that we are to go into space if we desire that,

353
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: if we want to know more about what is out there,

354
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 1: or even if one day humanity might even need to

355
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 1: escape planet Earth. That the suffering brought on these animals

356
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: was a terrible but necessary price to pay. And this

357
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: is a complicated thing to know that that is the price,

358
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 1: but to do it anyway is as equally human as

359
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: to reject it. Entirely. In any case, regardless of what

360
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: you believe, there is perhaps one thing that we can

361
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: all agree on that whatever benefit comes of our experiments

362
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: in space, let it be known that we will owe

363
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: it not only to the likes of Gagerin, Tereshkova and Armstrong,

364
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: but also to Albert Seagan and Debt Sick, and of

365
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: course to Lia. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and

366
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: would like to help supporters, you can now go to

367
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com Forward Slash Support. All donations, no

368
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements

369
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 1: of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain smith. Please

370
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. Feel free to

371
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the

372
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 1: stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an

373
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can

374
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or on

375
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,

376
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: Forward Slash Unexplained. Now it's time to take care of yourself.

377
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: To make time for you, Tell a doc gives you

378
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: access to a licensed therapist to help you get back

379
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,439
Speaker 1: to feeling your best, speak to a licensed therapist by

380
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,160
Speaker 1: phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm

381
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available

382
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: through most insurance or employers. Download the app, or visit

383
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started.

384
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: That's t e ladoc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast