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Almost half a century separates us from that April morning in 1961 - with his doomed-desperate
Gagarin "Let's go! ..". Gagarin was the first person to see the Earth from the side, but not he first saw
it from there. The road to space was laid by others - almost nameless then and almost forgotten now.
They did not smile at the movie cameras and did not give out interviews. Simply and silently they did
their job, saving their lives the lives of future heroes-cosmonauts. The first in space were they ...
The flights to space began ten years before Gagarin, and there was no Vostok spacecraft then, and
there were modified German V-2 rockets, the same ones that the British could not do at the end of the
war. "P-1A" - the so-called Soviet "V-2" with a detachable warhead. At the very beginning of the 50's
the missile was put into service by the Soviet Army, and it was this rocket that was destined to open an
era of successful flights of intelligent beings to the limits of the earth's atmosphere.
Our first cosmonauts were ordinary dogs. In these words, there is no irony - in fact, the preflight
training of the cosmonauts was not much different from the one that the cosmonauts-people will
afterwards: the same intense training, the same addiction to repeated overloads, to weightlessness, to
the cabin, to the space suit, Same problems of stress and life support. And how could it be otherwise?
Dogs did not fly for the sake of sensation or purely scientific experience - they simply replaced people
with themselves precisely when the risk of failure and uncertainty was prohibitively large ...
Our first test cosmonauts were ordinary mongrel mongrels - small, unpretentious and hardy. Gypsy,
Desik, Fox, Mishka, Chizhik, Brave, Ryzhik, Unhappy, Zib - these were the first intelligent beings
who in the summer of 1951, 10 years before Gagarin's flight, began to pave the way into space.

The first dog-cosmonauts, Gypsy and Desic, at the head of the rocket

The "R-1A" rocket with dogs in the detachable warhead was first launched on the early morning of
July 22, 1951 from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome. For the first flight, Gypsy and Desic were selected.
In special trays, entangled with wires and sensors, fed with carcass and milk, the general favorites
were placed in the instrument compartment at the very top of the multi-meter rocket. More than others,
as they recall, worried Sergei Korolev - because, probably, he understood better than others the whole
colossal significance of the event that could soon happen ...
This first flight lasted only a few short minutes. Launching under the powerful roar of the engine,
the rocket quickly reached a height of about a hundred kilometers, and then the instrumental cutoff
with the dogs separated and began to fall irresistibly downward at the speed of the current jet aircraft.
About what is experienced during such a short flight of a dog, tell the surviving shots of filming. Here
is a short excerpt from a documentary by Roman Gazenko, "A Squad of Space Prunes" (2004). The
text reads Alexander Kljukvin:

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Camera shots in the cockpit of the instrument compartment

At an altitude of about seven kilometers above the instrument compartment, the canopy of the
parachute opened. All who were then on the test site - designers, academicians, doctors - all rushed to
the instrument compartment. What about the dogs? Are you alive? .. No? .. The successful return of
the first cosmonauts to Earth was marked by a storm of joy on both sides: Gypsy and Desik were
rushing like madmen, and they all strove to take them in their hands, pat them, caress ... Alexander
Seryapin, a medic, now recalls Already a deep old man, and then one of those who opened the hatch
of the instrument compartment after landing:
... The first flight was very successful, the dogs were alive. When we released them, many
cars drove up, in one of them was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. When he saw the dogs - in my
opinion, the happier person was not there. He grabbed these dogs, ran around with them
around this very cabin. He drank them with water, gave sausages, sugar. Then I took them to
my car ...

For decades, everything that was connected with this, and with other first flights into space, was an
important state secret and was not subject to disclosure. The first public announcement about the flight
of Gypsy and Desic was made at a scientific conference in Kaluga forty years later ( source ). In
general, the secrecy was such that even the nicknames of the same dogs changed sometimes several
times - with this we still encounter ...
Alexander Dmitrievich Seryapin: "I had some
kind of love for Gypsy - more than for other dogs.
If there is any good piece, I give it, first of all, to
the Gypsy " ... Apparently, Gypsy liked not only
Seryapin. The chairman of the state commission,
academician Anatoly Blagonravov, who was
present at that first flight, simply took Gypsy
back to his home, thus ending his space career:
"Let this hero now live with me . " Fate
generously rewarded Gypsy: thus, he spent the
rest of his life in Academician Blagonravov - in
satiety and in peace.
Gypsy right after a successful landing
The life of a partner of Gypsy, Desik, fate
decreed otherwise. The doctors were very
interested in finding out whether the dog psyche
would be ready again to carry the considerable
stress associated with the flight. And just one
week after the first flight, on Sunday, July 29,
1951, Dezik went to his second space flight. This
time with him instead of Gypsy was a dog named
Fox. Everything went fine: the engine worked,
the instrument compartment separated and began
to fall down. Desik behaved quite calmly and,
probably, waited for the already familiar jerk at
the opening of the parachute. But this time there Desic in the cockpit (shooting during the flight)
was no jerk. The parachute system did not work
this time, and the instrument compartment with Desic and Fox at full speed crashed into the ground.
The first flight of Lisa and the second flight of Desic - was for them the last ...
That summer, rockets with dogs were launched from Kapustin Yar four more times. Half a month
after the death of Desik and Lisa, August 15, 1951, his first and successful flight was made by Mishka

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and Chizhik, and on August 19 - Brave and Red. And on August 28, Mishka and Chizhik were sent
back to the flight. But from their second flight they were not alive alive: the failure of the valve led to
the depressurization of the instrument compartment, and the dogs were killed by suffocation ...
Of the seven dogs that have been in space -
Gypsies, Desic, Fox, Mishka, Chizhik, Smely,
Ryzhik - four died. Something had to be urgently
done with the life support and rescue systems of
astronauts. And it was decided to focus on this,
and return all remaining cosmonauts to Moscow.
For the last start on September 3, the start in
Kapustin Yar was left only for the Unhappy and
the Bold (on his account, as we know, there was
already one successful flight). And then there
was a funny event: literally on the eve of the start
Bold ... just ran away during the walk,
Bold, who could not stand humanly disappeared, evaporated! ..
Disappeared ... but how to be? It's time to
equip dogs - two dogs prepared under a special
program! - and in the presence there is only one
unfortunate ... But there would be no happiness,
but misfortune helped. With the report to Sergey
Pavlovich Korolev, the doctors decided not to
hurry up (they themselves, like, missed the
Bold!), And quietly conduct something like a
medical experiment: to replace the already
prepared dog with a completely unprepared one.
A suitable candidate for the role of the first space
tourist was quickly found among those nameless
dogs that constantly lived near the soldiers' Zib, the first of the "space tourists"
canteen. The dog, for nothing that was untrained,
turned out to be extremely understandable and obedient, and within a few hours she, together with
Nebutyov (who had been trained a lot), experienced both the roar of the engine and the five-fold
overload. The flight and landing were normal, but what was the surprise of S.P. Korolev, when he saw
a completely unfamiliar dog instead of the Bold! .. However, the winners are not judged, and the
experiment in fact really turned out to be very successful. The dog immediately received the nickname
"Zyb" - "The Spare Disappeared Bobik". It was then that S.P. Korolev pronounced his famous phrase
about the fact that there will come a time when space will fly through trade-union permits. He liked
the idea of the "experiment" so much that in his report to the Politburo he presented the case as if the
"experiment" had been planned in advance. But Zib did not fly into space any more, and Academician
Blagonravov also seems to have taken it to him ...

Neither in 1952, nor in 1953, dogs flew into space: huge work was carried out, so to speak, in
terrestrial conditions. With the help of dogs, various means of rescue, space catapults, were tested, and
in the meantime more and more tests of rocket technology were conducted at the Kapustin Yar test
site.
Suborbital space flights with dogs on board continued in the summer of 1954, and in the first flight,
the astronauts had to experience a new way of returning: bailout right in space and the return journey
to Earth is no longer under protection with respect to a reliable instrument compartment, but in an
individual space suit. This historic experiment took place on June 26, 1954: the dogs were tested by
dogs Ryzhik and Fox (of course, it was already not the first Fox that died with Desic three years
earlier, call her Fox-2). Look at the snapshots of that experiment:

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Fragments of filming, capturing a bailout in space (on the left Fox-2, on the right Ryzhik)

By the way, in different sources there are small discrepancies in the dating of some flights. So, the
above-mentioned film by Roman Gazenko (where the footage you saw was taken from) is referred to
as the date when Ryzhik and Lisa-2 tested the spacesuits, not the 26th, but June 24th. I do not know
what caused such discrepancies. In order to avoid misunderstandings, it should be emphasized that, by
citing certain dates, I am always guided by the materials published in the book "The History of
Domestic Space Medicine" (2001).
That flight of Ryzhik and Fox-2 ended well: the dogs returned safely to Earth. A week later, on July
2, 1954, Damka and Mishka (or, better to say, Mishka-2, the first Mishka, as we know, were killed
together with Chizhik at the end of August 1951) started out into space. But this time there was a
tragedy: Mishka-2 - was lost. But the lady remained alive, and on July 17 it was with her that Ryzhik
was again sent back. Alive from this flight Ryzhik has not returned ...
Of the first two bailout testers in space, there was still a Fox-2. At the beginning of next year, on
January 25, the next flight was sent to her and a dog named Rita. Lice-2 was lucky: she again escaped.
But Rita died ...
As if testing at the same time with the spacesuits and dog fate, on the flight on February 5, 1955,
together with the dog Bulba, Fox 2 again was sent. In the film "Squad of Space Dogs" Alexander
Seryapin, worried, he talks about that flight:
... The time has come when I had to put Lisa in a spacesuit and send her on a flight. I knew
perfectly well that the animal that shoots at an altitude of 110 kilometers - it is less tolerant
of overload. Therefore, I planted the Fox so that she quietly descended from a height of 90
kilometers and surveyed the Earth with her gaze. And it turned out to be a very unpleasant
thing: the rocket moved to the side, but the rudders began to put it in place - that is, in a
direct position. And such was the strong leap that an animal from the cab, the Fox, broke
through the door and flew out into the atmosphere with the suit. But the blow was too big,
and the animal descended already dead. Well, I had to bury it there, in the steppe. That's how
I said goodbye to my favorite ...

So the Fox-2 died. Bulba, her partner, died too ...

A series of such medical and biological experiments connected with flights in spacesuits continued
with four more launches to a height of about 100 kilometers. All the dogs participating in them
remained alive, although, for example, Malyshka, Kozyavka and Albina managed to fly twice. By
1957, the stage of "spacesuit" flights was completed. By that time, at the disposal of researchers, or
had already entered, or was about to arrive much more powerful missile technology. The issue of
transition from suborbital space flights to orbital flights was on the agenda.

In total for these ten years, since 1951, 29 suborbital flights have been carried out, in which over
forty dog cosmonauts ( more precisely , forty-one) participated. Depending on the capabilities of the
missiles used (flights carried out by rockets of the type P-1, P-2 and P-5), the dogs climbed to a height
of about 100, over 200 and about 450 kilometers. During 1957, five suborbital space flights were
carried out, and only one of them ended unsuccessfully: in May, Joyne and Redhead died. Last in
1957, such a flight took place on September 6, and on October 4 ... On October 4, 1957, a two-stage
R-7 missile, the famous "seven", brought into orbit the world's first artificial Earth satellite.

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Today it is difficult even to imagine the resonance caused by the flight of the first satellite in the
world. The Russian word "satellite" instantly became clear to all without translation. Radio amateurs
around the world for two weeks (while the transmitter was working) greedily caught signals from the
satellite - these signals you just heard.
However, although the satellite stayed in orbit for three months, but a month later another event
occurred, against which probably even this fantastic flight faded: the "seven" for the first time in the
world brought into orbit a living creature - a dog named Laika.
The rocket was launched from Baikonur on November 3, 1957. Initially, it was clear that in any
case, the dog will not return back: the questions of returning from orbit to Earth either in 1957, or even
in 1958 were not solved yet. The choice of "whom to send?" Stood between Albina and Laika. They
stopped the choice on Laika: Albina had puppies. In theory, Laika in case of a successful withdrawal
of the hermetic cabin into orbit could live for about a week: it was for this period that the reserve of air
regeneration material and a reserve of three liters of a special jelly-like mass were calculated - to
quench both hunger and thirst simultaneously ...
About this very "one week" the whole world, of course, knew nothing. Many sincerely believed
that Lika would certainly be returned to Earth. The flight of the second satellite with the dog on board
was intended to play a huge propaganda role, because he was just at the celebration of the 40th
anniversary of the Great October Revolution. For several days the leading Soviet newspapers regularly
informed about Laiki's normal state of health - as long as the connection with the satellite was not once
"lost." Public opinion believed that, in any case, the dog was painlessly killed by some kind of
injection ...
Information on how Laika actually died was published only in October 2002. Everything on the
second satellite was much, much more tragic. Haste from purely propagandistic considerations (and in
fact the first successful launch of the "seven" took place only in late August 1957) led to the fact that
the undocking of a sealed cabin from the last stage of the rocket, puffing with heat, was not provided
at all. In addition, the satellite was placed on a pronounced elliptical orbit (228 km at perigee and 947
km at apogee), and at each turn the cabin was heated for a long time by the sun's rays. As a result, the
weak forced ventilation of the cabin simply could not cope with the tapping of the heat entering the
cabin. The temperature in the cabin quickly rose, and after the first few turns Laika was dead ...
Says Alexander Seryapin, who immediately cooked Laika for the flight:

Alexander Seryapin has in mind, probably, those ground experiments with dogs that were at the

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request of "the greatest bosses" held in 1958 and whose purpose was to find out how much time dogs
must die in the same conditions in which Was in orbit Laika ...
Thus, the leading Soviet newspapers, publishing in the October jubilee information about the
normal state of the dog, simply lied: by that time, Laika had long died an excruciating death.
The second satellite with the dead Laika on board, having made two and a half thousand turns
around the Earth, was burnt in the dense layers of the atmosphere in mid-April 1958. A quiet, obedient
Lika for the whole world remained a symbol of the beginning of the space age ...

Orbital flights of the cosmonauts were resumed only in August 1960 - already on the Vostok
missile and space system. Until then, several rockets with dogs were launched at a height of 210 and
450 kilometers. Not all these launches ended safely: on February 21, 1958 Palma and Pushok died, and
on October 31 of the same year Zhulba and Pushkin died. Of course, no details about all these flights
were reported in the press.
And the famous orbital flight of Belka and Strelka was also strictly secret at the beginning. The
prototype of the future Gagarin "East" was put into orbit on August 19, 1960.The bailout designed for
an airtight container created a real "living area": in addition to the dogs Belka and Strelka, to put the
mice, insects, there were several species of plants, fungi, as well as seeds. Orbital flight lasted about a
day, the ship-to-satellite made 17 orbits around the Earth - just such a flight will repeat only a few
months later a second cosmonaut German Titov.
Slowness of official propaganda, in
general, is quite clear. After all, the same
Belka and Strelka were only doubles the
other two astronauts dogs - Seagull and
Chanterelle. That Seagull and chanterelles
had July 28, 1960 to do what was possible
to make Proteins and spit three weeks later.
Yes, the first in the satellite-spacecraft
"Vostok" were supposed to fly Seagull
(Snow Leopard) and Chanterelle. Witnesses
said that SP Korolev, fondly refers to
chanterelles, whispered to her before the
start: "I really want you to come back ..." Chanterelle and Seagull. for them the world learned nothing
Both dogs did not return. The missile
exploded, not withdrawing the ship in orbit ...
Not surprisingly, the flight of Belka and Strelka, it was decided to make public only after their
successful landing. Our Belka and Strelka in the blink of an eye became famous all over the world.
And the way people around the world is Belka and Strelka were the first intelligent beings to visit
space and returning safely from there . Now we know that it was not so, but in relation to the orbital
flight - so in fact it was ...
Images of Belka and Strelka, these lovely
mongrels, were replicated in many millions of
copies. I suddenly found that dog muzzle can be
quite recognizable, like a human face. American
Van Cliburn, who himself something almost on
his hands worn, was delighted by the fact that he
had to hold dogs in their arms. One born after a
while Arrows puppies catty NS Khrushchev
presented to the family of President Kennedy,
and the American branch of the descendants of
the famous dog continued already in the White
House. Until the end of his days Belka and
Van Cliburn with Belka and Strelka hands Strelka were the universal favorite.
1960 marked the end of two more starts of the "East". Orbital flight Bees and Flies could be no less
triumphant than the flight of Belka and Strelka. In fact, he was quite successful - almost to the end.
Ship-satellite was launched into orbit on the morning of December 1, 1960. After the turn of the 17th
it was time to return the ship to Earth. And then the unexpected happened: instead of the decelerating
pulse ship was accelerating, and moved to a higher orbit. There is a real danger of it falling outside the
Soviet territory. And then the ship with dogs on board was blown on it is explosive. Bee Fly and died
with him ...
Exactly three weeks later, December 22, 1960, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome launched the
"East" with dogs astronauts Joke (also known under the nickname Little Lady, Alpha, Pearl) and
comets (and this dog was also "aliases" - Krasavka and Zhulka ). As a result of an engine failure

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instead of orbital flight suborbital turned to a height of approximately 200 kilometers. That flight was
denied a few systems, and the dog should certainly have died, but ... they did not die. Falling
somewhere in the wilds of Siberia, near the Stony Tunguska container with dogs for many, many hours
spent in the snow on a cold December lyutom. All insects, rats, etc. - all of them died. Joke and Comet
survived ...
So that readers can at least a little to imagine the tension in which there were in 1960, and SP
Korolev and his colleagues, and the guys from the first group of cosmonauts, suffice it to say that the
test version of the "East" was put into orbit a May 15, 1960: landing of the descent module does not
provide for, but even in these conditions, refused orientation system, and the ship was unable to slow
down. Launch of "Vostok 1 the first series - the refusal of one of the missile units and blast through
20 seconds after the start (it was then killed Seagull and Chanterelle). East 2 first series - well
(Belka and Strelka). East 3 first series - the refusal of the orientation system (Pchelka and
Mushka). East 4 first series - the refusal of the engine (A king and Krasavka). It turns out that of
the five runs successful was only one ...
The top political leadership of the country, wishing to necessarily win the Americans in the space
race, required to launch a man into space necessarily before the end of 1960. In principle, these terms
are quite consistent and moods SP Korolev, who, however, believed that human flight should take
place only after two consecutive successful launch of satellites, ships "Vostok" with dogs.

Tests are absolutely the same, "the East", which was to fly a man held in March 1961. Program the
two flights were also completely identical, "Gagarin". The first such flight was March 9, one
revolution around the Earth made a ship-to-satellite, on board with the dog Chernushka was a full-
blown human mannequin in this suit. Dummy jokingly nicknamed "Ivan". Everything had to be so, as
if with Chernushka flying man on the earth to catch pre-recorded beats of the human heart, and instead
of the voice from orbit astronaut song sounded. Flight ringlets went surprisingly well. And on the
same day the guys from the cosmonaut corps celebrated the birthday of one of their comrades, Yuri
Gagarin.
In the following the same flight was scheduled to depart dog named
Luck. Some of the future astronauts - said that Gagarin - considered a
nickname too provocative, and he went to meet him: Luck was called
Asterisk.
"East" with an asterisk, and the same "Ivan Ivanovich" went into
orbit March 25, 1961. Future astronauts of the first six - Valery
Bykovsky, Yuri Gagarin, Grigoriy Nelyubov, Andrian Nikolayev, Pavel
Popovich and German Titov - accompanied by an asterisk in Baikonur.
On the eve of Kharkiv was taken to bury their comrades on the force,
Valentin Bondarenko, who on March 23 was fatally burned during a
workout in surdobarokamere. But they went to Baikonur: because in
case of successful completion of the flight Sprockets someone of them
had to change it in the next, "East" ... Luck, who became asterisk
Let me remind the sad result of flight "of the East" in 1960: from 14 May to four of the five runs
were, one way or another unsuccessful. Of the eight dogs astronauts killed four. In addition to this - a
terrible accident at Baikonur October 24, 1960, when in preparation for launch in the R-16 rocket
suddenly turned on boosters, the entire rocket broke out like a candle, and in the fire alive burnt down
a few dozen people, including Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, Deputy Minister of Defense and
Commander of missile forces (what's left of it, was identified only by melted gold star of the Hero).
And another plus to this - an absurd death of Valentin Bondarenko, the youngest of all future
astronauts of the first group. But on this dark background there is preparation for the first flight of a
man ...
Ten years of the dog people replaced him and died in order to then not, people died. And now the
time has come when the spacecraft cabin has a person had to change the dog. It is said that later
Gagarin in one of the banquet said the following sentence: "I still do not understand who I am," the
first man "or" the last dog " ... recalls Pavel Popovich:

Flight Sprockets and "Ivan" was completed successfully. And after only two and a half weeks,
April 12, 1961, was launched into orbit is exactly the same "East" with anyone is not yet known
military pilot, Senior Lieutenant Yuriem Gagarinym:

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In that April day could happen any: even TASS was prepared in three different versions, from the
tragic to the joyous. And not because there were no problems in this flight! But for the success of his
dogs did everything they could do.
First they were ...

Valentin Antonov, April 2009

in the
category

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