'So first the faithful dog will go...'

 

On this day in 1957 a mongrel from the streets of Moscow was launched into orbit around the Earth, strapped into the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 – the first dog in space. Laika, as she was named, was never going to survive the journey, as the technology to allow safe re-entry into the atmosphere had not yet been developed. Laika's job was to show that living creatures from Earth could survive in space, thereby paving the way for human space flight. The Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert paid tribute to the poor dog in this sad and beautiful poem –

First the Dog

for Laika

So first the faithful dog will go
and after it a pig or ass
through the black grass will beat a track
along it will the first man steal
who with iron hand will smother
on his glass brow a drop of fear


so first the dog honest mongrel
which has never abandoned us
dreaming of earthly lamps and bones
will fall asleep in its whirling kennel
its warm blood boiling drying away


but we behind the dog and second
dog which guides us on a leash
we with the astronauts’ white cane
awkwardly we bump into stars
we see nothing we hear nothing
we beat with our fists on the dark ether
on all the wavelengths is a whining


everything we can carry on board
through the cinders of dark worlds
name of man scent of apple
acorn of sound quarter of colour
should all be saved for our return
so we can find the route in an instant
when the blind dog leading us
barks at the earth as at the moon

The Soviet authorities, lying with every breath, gave conflicting accounts of how Laika died (it was actually overheating). She was duly memorialised as a Soviet hero, with a statue and plaque at Star City, and a place at the Monument to the Conquerors of Space in Moscow, as well as on postage stamps and matchbox labels. But the best, most fitting memorial to this unhappy victim of human hubris is surely Herbert's poem.