February 20, 1957
SPACE FLIGHT: London, 16 – Moscow radio today broadcast a report that Soviet scientists had launched rockets that were propelling dogs into the stratosphere. The animals appeared to have suffered no ill effects from their journey into space. The rockets reached an altitude of over 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface and none of the dogs died during the experiment nor as a result of it. All the canine passengers returned to Earth safe and sound. «Some of the dogs were in the rockets for about three years. During the experiments, their movements during the space flight were filmed,» said Radio Moscow. «Other experiments were then made by putting dogs wearing oxygen masks into hermetically sealed chambers. The oxygen was supplied to the dogs from balloons, each containing 32 liters of oxygen. When the rockets reached a height of 110 kilometers, the module containing the dogs separated from the rockets and began to fall back to Earth. The parachute opened when the module was about 3-4 kilometers above the Earth’s surface,» according to the report.