"This little dog was sent up there for a piece of propaganda. ... Tragic, but there you go."

This declaration by Nick Abadzis seems to be pure and vile nonsense just to say that Russians were so cruel to kill an innocent animal. Accusation of bloodthirsty aliens-communists of vivisection, suitable for a speach in a lady's club...
In reality the dog was sent to space just to check if a human being could survive there. Nothing more. Or Nick Abadzis would prefer that Russians send to space first a man, and only after that a dog?

I think that's British understatement he's using there, and he's not implying anything about the use of animals. Perhaps in the book he is - go to the lecture and find out.

Hey,
Just to clarify, Nick was not being anti-Russian or anything at all like that. There was a lack of space which prevented me from fully explaining the entirety of the situation - which is explored in the book.

I'll leave you with a 1998 quote from Oleg Georgivitch Gazenko, one of the Russian scientists who worked on Sputnik 2:

"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 did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of a dog."

To Mike: "go to the lecture and find out."
Thank you for the invitation, but I'm a little far away from L'Enfant Plaza, I'm not even in
Washington,DC, I'm in Moscow, RF, God bless Internet. Hope you go there, find out and tell me
and all.
To Scott Rosenberg: It's quite natural, that with age, closer to an end of life, a man becomes
more sentimental. Academician Gazenko in 1998 was already in the age of 80, the fact that
partially explains his sorrowfulness of what he had been doing in his 40-ies.
Probably "Nick was not being anti-Russian or anything at all like that", as well as you. But what
is the liaison between "Cold War Politics" and Laika dog space exploration mission, expressed in
the title of your article? Or this is just an overstatement, typical to all newsmen? Nothing
personal, I guess that your article like so many newspaper articles was baptized with title by an
editor.
Otherwise if Laika dog was involved in Cold War politics, then she probably deserves a "Victory in
Early Stage of Cold War" medal? In a month time a monument to Laika is to be installed in
Moscow, nearby subway station Dynamo. All interested are welcome.

I suggest Ivan get hold of a copy of the book and read it before he suggests that Nick Abadzis is anti-Russian. He seems quite the opposite to me; Laika portrays in a very fair and even-handed way the pressures the scientists were under. It’s a book that celebrates Sputnik II, Laika and the Russian space program as much as anything.

Mr. Abadzis'LAIKA is wonderful and truthful. Russian scientists were heartless and pledged allegiance to Premier Khrushchev and Korolov.Living and dead 1957's Soviet Space Program must be judged and found guilty for killing our innocent LAIKA.

Mr Abadzis' statement is both truthful and poignant. In 1957 Cold War saw the onset of the Soviet Space Program.Nikita Khrushchev and key scientists Sergei Khrushchev Sergei Korolev,Dmitry Malashenkov, Oleg Gazenko,and Boris Chertok played God. LAIKA was the helpless victim. The living scientists MUST BE JUDGED AND FOUND GUILTY. NO ONE MUST FORGET THIS CRIME.

What seems so unreasonable to Ivan about the idea that Russia would mistreat a dog? They spent most of the time between their revolution and the collapse of communism mistreating people at every opportunity, including people in other countries like Poland who would have had much better lives if Russia ceased to exist. Ivan seems to know nothing about how political the space race was and the lengths Russia would go to get headlines. A good example is the cosmonaut, Komarov, who was launched in a vehicle known to be unsafe, against the protests of Gagarin, who regarded it as a near-suicide mission. Komarov died. When the Americans launched 2-man Gemini missions, Russia just had to do better by launching 3-man missions - yet again this was scientifically and technically useless. They got 3 men into the capsule by not providing spacesuits. 3 cosmonauts died when a capsule depressurized during re-entry. Their treatment of their own cosmonauts was ethically little short of vivisection to grab headlines and, given how their own cosmonauts were treated, it is rather strange to be outraged that someone might think the Russians could be "cruel" enough to needlessly kill a dog. For Ivan to describe people who criticize this program as "vile" is idiotic. Sentencing space crews to death to get impressive headlines is vile. Sending scientists to gulags for speaking out of turn is vile. Executing East German youths for wanting freedom from communism is vile. Russia had more then enough lessons in vileness to give out.