Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 185 posts

Re: Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

#141

Post by PhasmaFelis »

psychphysic wrote: post #60
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This tone is really harsh, animals dying to push science forward is still common today That doesn't really change anything. > Laika got to be remembered, which his already much more than can be said of most test subjects I doubt that was much comfort to her.

She's a dog. She wasn't capable of being comforted (or worried) by abstract concepts in the way humans can. She wouldn't understand what it means to live or die for something. Still being the first mammal in Earth orbit is wild. Man's best friend indeed!

> She's a dog. She wasn't capable of being comforted (or worried) by abstract concepts in the way humans can.

That was my point, yes.

Re: Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

#142

Post by standardUser »

misiti3780 wrote: post #136
boulos wrote: post #45

This got asked deep in a comment, but NASA also used animals in space tests as briefly mentioned in the article. https://history.nasa.gov/animals.html is a more straightforward recounting of the various tests and animals involved, including the V-2 tests.

so messed up.

Seems more humane than factory farming (shruggy emoji).

Re: Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

#144

Post by JKCalhoun »

mikehodgson wrote: post #91
JKCalhoun wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hoping someone would mention. Here is another link: https://www.nickabadzis.com/laika-graphic-novel

There is also this one written by Jeff Lemire, though it is obviously a work of fiction. It also features the American monkeys Able and Baker: https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/primordial

Able and Baker newsreel: https://ia902803.us.archive.org/28/items/Jeff_Quitney_me/201...

Re: Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

#146

Post by serf »

kazinator wrote: post #99
jrockway wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly taken aback at the poor taste of this comment. The dude adopted a cute puppy and cared for it. That's not a good reason to be murdered. I don't know exactly when this happened, but tensions were high after the Cuban missile crisis, and a peace offering in the form of a cuddly creature to love doesn't really seem terrible to me.

> not a good reason to be murdered Nobody said it was; and he wasn't murdered for any good reason.

but what was the point in what you said?

do you really think that the decision to own that dog had some sway in his assassination? why?

What you said just comes off as a snide comment about someone murdered that you didn't care for, which is to say that I think the comment was low-quality and purposely inflammatory.

>and he wasn't murdered for any good reason.

do you have some insider insight you'd like to share with the class?

Re: Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

#147

Post by areoform »

Laika's story is far more heartbreaking. Everyone involved with handling Laika hated to send her to death. From a technician who was the last person to see Laika,

> One of the technicians preparing the capsule before final liftoff stated that "after placing Laika in the container and before closing the hatch, we kissed her nose and wished her bon voyage, knowing that she would not survive the flight."[16]

One of the lead scientists involved expressed regrets over Laika's sacrifice,

> Oleg Gazenko, one of the scientists responsible for sending Laika into space, expressed regret for allowing her to die:

> "Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't have done it ... We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog."

"We treat them like babies who cannot speak."

The US Air Force's aeromedical research division, under the aegis of the Air Force Missile Development Center, became the first entity to send an animal (fruit flies) into space on a captured Nazi V2 rocket. They also became the first to send a mammal into space, Albert II. A rhesus monkey who suffered the ignoble fate of dying on impact after a parachute failure.

These experiments led to the development of the first aeromedical research studies that supported the eventual development of crewed capsules. NASA has a great series on the topic, https://history.nasa.gov/afspbio/part1.htm

You can also watch an early film made by the USAF describing their research, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSBO0haqAwc

Re: Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

#148

Post by userbinator »

misiti3780 wrote: post #136
boulos wrote: post #45

This got asked deep in a comment, but NASA also used animals in space tests as briefly mentioned in the article. https://history.nasa.gov/animals.html is a more straightforward recounting of the various tests and animals involved, including the V-2 tests.

so messed up.

Would you like to volunteer to go instead?

Re: Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

#149

Post by my_city »

rurp wrote: post #137
asdff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economy arguments always annoyed me about communism. No country would have an easy time avoiding economic collapse with a US and all her allies global embargo going on for decades. Plus we probably would not have won WWII so quickly if we had not resorted to using a planned economy to turn the nation from an economically depressed state still in the great depression into a global superpower.

The embargos weren't out of spite; the Soviet Union was an aggressive bad actor in a myriad of ways. I'm not sure why implementing a wartime economic measures is supposed to be a knock. The US economy is far from a textbook definition of capitalism, just like Communist China is nothing like the dictionary definition of Communism. All economic systems are hodgepodge of economic systems, full of good and bad ideas, som…

"The embargos weren't out of spite"

hahaha. Let me laugh more: HAHAHHAHAHA.

You are the kind of guy who believes that American sanctions against Venezuela are "well-meaning", that the bombing of civilian populations are "shameful errors", that lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was "an honest mistake", that the invasion of Afghanistan was done to "combat terrorism" and that the bombing of Syriah was to "promote democracy and freedom", right? You sincerely believe that, correct?

Re: Laika, the space dog, and her one-way trip into orbit (2018)

#150

Post by pstuart »

yunwal wrote: post #49
markoman wrote: post #16

Let's not forget Sharon Van Etten's tribute song to Laika, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZixNE7NEJ4

Arcade fire too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8AArhhjo44

Came looking for this. The song is sublime even without that context.
Post reply on HN