SPACE DOG LAIKA: First dog in Space
(3 November 1957)
I caught myself getting uptight again
yesterday, while watching the erstwhile network "Evening News", for about the
billionth time. Since the temperature was dropping rapidly outside, I had
chucked another synthetic log on the fire (these used to be simply made from
compressed sawdust; now they are a far more sophisticated and chemically
enhanced byproduct of forest rape) and was contentedly watching my two
pseudo-wolves snooze on the rug by the hearth. Laika and Deejay may be
pure-bred Siberian Huskies, but deep down inside their little doggy brains I
have little doubt that they remain barely disconnected from their primitive
origins, despite the 10,000 or more years that chronologically separate them
from their Eucyon and Canis Lupus ancestors. Occasionally, an arctic blue eye
would flicker open for the briefest of seconds to silently regard the ever
changing spectacle that an open fire presents to all living creatures. It was a
truly cozy setting and one made all the more pleasant by a recent read-through
of Winterdance by Gary Paulsen, a book about the Alaskan Iditarod
dogsled race that inspired a Disney comedy called "Snow Dogs". A
comfortable awareness settled in on me then, in my peaceful torpor by the fire,
that here was to be found a uniquely wonderful and genuine inner
peacefulness....simply being alone with my two little woof-wolves and
my thoughts. The serenity continued to permeate the room........ until I rashly
awoke the Video Beast from its electronic slumber, that is.
First, however, a few facts
and observations are in order concerning the event in space history that
occurred on 3 November 1957. My own pup, a Siberian Husky bitch, is named after
the famous original "Laika" that rode Sputnik II into orbit, 45 years ago. The
Russian word "Laika" is pronounced just like the well-known German camera make
named Leica, and it translates directly to "barker". This is somewhat
ironic, since there are at least three distinct and recognized breeds of spitz
type dogs that are all named Laikas--most of which are relatively quiet dogs
that do not normally bark. Among these are the Russo-European Laika, the East
Siberian Laika, and the West Siberian Laika--all look roughly similar in
appearance, but vary considerably in characteristics.
(Above : Laika the space pioneer in her space
cabin)
Before 1800, virtually all Spitz type
dogs in Russia were referred to as laikas. The Russo-European Laikas
were originally bred to hunt elk and wolves and were fearless and very
aggressive, making poor human companions. The East Siberian Laika was bred to be
a hunting dog (gun dog); this breed is calm by nature and makes a good
companion. The West Siberian Laika was also bred to be a hunting dog, but was
used as a sled and utility dog and proved to be a good human companion, too.
There is, anecdotally, some speculation that this is the hunting breed of dog
Lenin wrote to his mother about from exile in Siberia. The Russians in the
1950s were reputed to have used a large number of these West Siberian Laikas in
space flight medical experiments.
(above left: A commemorative Romanian
stamp)
On 3 November, a "mixed breed dog" (most
likely a mix of Laika and Beagle that was supposedly a stray roaming the
streets of Moscow) was launched into an earth orbit on board the Soviet space
satellite Sputnik II. The satellite weighed an astonishing 250 pounds,
including Laika and the dog's life support systems (see illustration of Sputnik
II on stamp at left). Originally, the West was told that Laika had survived for
several days before her life support system was exhausted and that she had then
been deliberately "put to sleep"; the truth of what actually
happened was not revealed until some 45 years afterwards, at the 2002 World
Space Conference in Houston (October).
A scientist formerly associated with
the Sputnik program informed the Houston Conference that in reality, due to
several factors that included excessive overheating in the capsule and
agitation, Laika had expired after only about 7 hours of flight on that mission.
Life support biotelemetry systems had failed to pick up any life signs after
roughly that period of time had elapsed.
Regardless of this newly disclosed information
on the actual fate of this dog, the Soviet space "Laika" was a true canine hero
that well deserves to be remembered, since the scientific information obtained
from her flight formed an important part of the life support database that
underpinned the first manned Soviet orbital missions, shortly
thereafter.
(Above right: a Russian capstan-type pressure
suit used to send dogs to high altitudes in rockets,
1957)
As the most famous of the Soviet 'space dogs' Laika's
sacrifice may also serve as a reminder of the fact that dogs have
traditionally been and shall ever remain humanity's closest animal friend and
most joyful companion in life, a fact that the Soviet space Laika memorialised
in her death as well as in her short life. A number of other dogs followed
Laika into orbit, but unlike poor little Laika, were successfully recovered;
among these were 'Belka' and 'Strelka'. Strelka after returning from her flight
gave birth to a litter of puppies, one of which was given as a gift to John F.
Kennedy, then President of the United States.
(Left: another image
of Laika and her cabin mock-up, before orbital
flight)
Watching my own Siberians (a breed very
closely related to the Siberian Laika breeds) while pondering on these
historical 'Cold War' circumstances, I was again reminded of the great and
deeply satisfying feeling that having one's dogs at one's feet by a cozy fire
imparts. It really can't get much better than this, I thought to myself, but at
this point I had absently committed the unforgivable sin of grabbing the TV
remote (man's Ultimate Symbol of Absolute Power and Authority) and
switched on the baleful electronic Hungry Eye.
Mistake! As fast as the
movement of electrons through a CRT, my beautifully serene mood was smashed into
a million jagged and schizophrenic pieces as the nauseating flow of liquid feces
that is commercial American television advertising started to ooze into the
room. Predictably, the 'national news' was full of angst-riven stories about the
poor Israelis and the latest waves of suffering they have been made to endure by
those nasty Palestinians, followed by statements from the present
administration's PR spokesperson about how the US must rally to the aid
of Israel in the wake of the most recent terrorist strike on an Israeli vacation
resort. I am sure that to the average shit-for-brains lower middle class viewer,
these impassioned, interminable exhortations
(above right: The canine heroes of Disney's "SNOW
DOGS")
to rally behind President Dubya's
military Holy Crusade seemed perfectly logical, but for others such as myself
who are still able to apply a modicum of logic and reasoning to our lives,
a sense of increasing anger quickly grew. The last vestiges of reality in
my nation of birth have been perverted and prostituted into a skewed and
dangerously twisted simulacrum of fantasy by the media, our commercially driven
socioeconomic power elite, and our supposed 'democratically elected' government,
and we are now daily being asked to swallow this spin-doctored pseudo
pathos whole, without chewing or even blinking!.
Just attempting to watch commercial
television programming now is an exquisite exercise in madness, as whatever
programming may be underway is suddenly sheared off every 5 minutes (with about
as much finesse as hacking at it with a cleaver), so as to deliver more
mindless drivel about buying things to hapless viewers. Any intelligent person
watching this 'Disneyesque' commercial advertising cannot but reflect on how
supremely ludicrous it is, but the fact that it poses a far more dangerous
threat to our perceptions of reality is all too often lost in the Tsunami wave
of bland, smiling, perfect people used in the little vignettes to hawk products.
Since we all unconsciously wish we were as good looking or happy and well
adjusted as all those smilingly perfect models appear to be, we may find
ourselves intently watching the commercials, despite our most august
intellectual protestations; it is, after all, simply a predictable model tried
and tested in the undergraduate psych lab. Regrettably, over a period of time,
commercial advertising wears away the strongest resistance just as insidiously
as water wears away stone over a sufficient number of year. In the end it
is a losing battle that only people like Dr. Ted (Kaczynski) manage to react
decisively against (but at what cost?). The rest of us typically swallow down
our intense distaste and supress the rising waves of nausea like good little
consumers of mass quantities, and keep on perpetuating the norm like so many
neutered sheep.
I suppose what is most insulting to me
personally is the fact that today's commercial media (as well as all etelvised
entertainment) aims squarely at the lowest common denominator--the exact
opposite of what our intelligence suggests ought to be the case. Thus 'news
media' becomes a substitute set of parents for many viewers, gently reminding
them constantly to wipe their feet after entering, drive carefully, don't
leave your childre in the car unattended, ad infinitum. This is hardly 'news',
but perverted and grossly dumbed-down 'public interest' programming
carried to ludicrous extremes. But that is what our 'everyone is equal' code of
political correctness demands today, regardless of the fact that we
hardly have a truly classless society. Enabling shit-for-brains
consumers to acquire material goods on par with more astute, educated,
and intellectually advanced classes in American society hardly
qualifies as a mechanism for conferring class equality...
Since this is the day after the
American Thanksgiving Day (harvest holiday, for you readers of these words who
are of non-US origin), today is the erstwhile official 'opening' day of the
annual month-long consumer feeding frenzy that is what the American celebration
of Christmas has been reduced to.
(left: "It's OK, Dad. Spaying doesn't
hurt....much!")
Earlier in the evening, the television news
programs had been full of video footage showing seething masses of average
or below people thronging to shopping malls all over the nation, as they
fought each other for lowered price inducements & 'come-on' deals on cheap
consumer crap that no one really needs. I couldn't help but find myself wincing
at the footage of all those overweight, drab, 'common' people, dressed in their
tacky Nike exercise wear, as they elbow-jammed each other to grab item after
item in a bizarre display of annual mass consumerism. The pretext for all
of this (the celebration of the birth of the Christians' Jesus) has, in
the last 50 years all but been forgotten, as American consumerism emerges as
the new age religion of America's 'third estate'.
Predictably, these scenes of barely restrained
commercial retail mayhem made me reflect on the fact that ours is not the only
culture in the parade of world civilisations that is and has been substantially
impacted by the collective actions, awareness, and behavioral patterns of
marginally competent elements of the population. Nero's Rome, after all, was
constantly threatened by its immense population of unstable, menacing crowds of
inferior quality people, until the great conflagration consumed that part of the
city they lived in, forcing them out and elsewhere. The 'bread and circuses'
used to divert the politically threatening, rootless masses of these 'ordinary'
people was also, of course, a vital necessity in order for the patricians of
Rome to preserve their privileged status quo in that regime. Imperial
Russia was another setting where the vast crowds of serfs and downtrodden,
common rabble of society were barely held in check, until finally all hell broke
loose in the Soviet Revolution. Pre-revolution France, ditto. The list is
endless, of course.
In contrast, America, a land which originally
embarked upon a new, highly idealised social and cultural path several hundred
years ago to make all people free and equal, has ultimately evolved its own
unique process to control, subjugate, and harness the immense, seething, and
potentially deadly emotional inertia of its 'lower class' demographic strata.
And what a convenient little process it has turned out to be, over the
past 50 years. Today, as our national educational, intellectual, and
cultural standards continue to stagnate or precipitously decline (compared
to many other nations which place a far higher value on the so-called 'higher'
values of human existence than mere economic scrabbling for profit), we in
America have managed to not only develop a system in which the economy may be
kept internally self-supporting, but wherein (how convenient!) the lower class'
inherent economic & political instability may actually be
controlled by virtue of a dual process of keeping them endlessly
indebted (to commercial corporations) and hooked on an unending and limitless
cornucopia of low-end consumer goods and services.
This, in my opinion, is the great
genius of the present American way of life, best exemplified through
incorporation of science and technology to provide ever more engrossing
electronic 'bread & circuses' to keep the dimbulbs diverted and
render them politically, economically, and intellectually harmless. By
harnessing all these reactive dimbulbs, dipshits, yahoos, and otherwise
'without-a-clue' individuals who occupy the lower level of the American
materialist consumer hierarchy, not only is political and economic stability
supported, but all of that vastly ignorant & below-average human
awareness is kept handily under control of the politico-economic
masters.
(right: Deejay and Laika at play in
1993)
In fact, even the minimally reactive
nature of these commoner elements of our culture has been
'productively' transformed into a surrogate strain of patriotic virtue. The
saddest thing about our uniquely American status quo is that these
intellectually simple specimens of humanity themselves are often the
greatest and loudest champions of the present American system of grossly
mindless consumption--the same ones who reflexively clutch that great symbolic
remnant of America's original lofty ideals (our flag) and shake it angrily in
the face of anyone who DARES to call the present perversion that is
American society into sharp and critical focus. The brilliant irony of this last
fact is doubtless NOT in the least lost in the minds of that wealthy 5%
of our nation who control all the powerful economic & socialising apparatus
(media and public relations) that perpetuates the 'American Dream', but it
shines about as brightly as an extinguished lighthouse beacon on dangerously
rocky shoals in the minds of about 50% (at least) of our present
population.
For this reason (among many), to cite but one
extremely aggravating example, no one ever calls into question the ethical
rectitude of car manufacturers who aim their automobile advertising on
television directly and most unsubtley at immature drivers (who are most apt to
'get' the market-driven message that cars are not intended for transportation as
much as they are for enabling reckless, unsafe thrills). One has to remember
that America is the nation that invented the word "co-dependent", after all, and
that ingrained sense of having absolutely no social responsibility for
the misuse of its commercial products falls squarely at the feet of our
corporate 'masters'.
Instead of acceptance of social responsibility by
commercial corporations, we find substituted small and politically correct
'messages' that caution us in rote manner that 'coffee may be hot and can
burn you', 'fast food may make you overweight if eaten in immoderate
quantities', 'smoking may cause health problems', and 'don't
try this at home: closed course, professional driver', all the while
(left: Laika dreaming Arctic dreams of Alaskan
sled-races)
engaging in the same unscrupulous, unethical
practices that have been in place since day one. This is most likely due
to the corporations counting on the fact that the vast unwashed herd of us
out here have short memories and are possessed of even shorter attention spans
(which they deliberately cultivate). They reasonably assume that after a
momentary disruption (perhaps mildly unpleasant, but 'containable') in the
normal laminar flow of their commercial business operations by some goody-good
consumer rights advocate, consumer attention will have once again shifted away
from whatever point of contention may have originally attracted it, and the
average consumer will likely again be happily diverted in resumption of
well-established gluttonous consumption habits.
Unhappily, some demographic elements of our
society that should know better are just as guilty as the brainless
hoi-poloi of eschewing awareness of disturbing and harmful consumerist
attitudes. I was at the post office yesterday, standing in one of those
interminable lines that a society such as ours produces at peak marketing times
of the year, and was fascinated to observe a particularly interesting example of
this materialise right under my nose as I watched cars draw up to the drive-in
mail drop boxes. A late model Mercedes Benz sport utility vehicle , obviously
very new and very expensive, cruised by, driven by a young Chinese-American
woman of slight stature. Noting this while being unwillingly drowned in the
obnoxious sights and sounds of a nearby cell-phone user (gossiping about
execrably trivial crap in a loud and grating voice), I suddenly noted another
late model, expensive Mercedes SUV drove by, as before driven by a small young
Asian-American woman. Before I had reached the head of the line, at least 6
more of these expensive Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicles--all of them
driven by young Asian-American women (presumably wives, with kids on board)--had
appeared! I was stunned to momentarily reflect on the fact that the oft
stereotyped Asian-Yuppie tendency to conspicuously consume (at least in my
neighborhood, a neighborhood with a high percentage of Asian-American families)
was clearly more than just a stereotype. Seeing this sort of thing (a
phenomenon quite likely motivated by traditional Confucian influences that
promote striving after prestige, wealth, and status) alive and well in my own
backyard made me cringe a bit, inwardly.
As if this weren't bad enough, last week I had driven
home on the freeway from a board meeting at the local aviation museum in my
faithful old bright orange 1979 Honda Civic station wagon and encountered one of
these same Asiam 'conspicuous status consumers' face to face in a most
distrurbing and upsetting encounter. In preface, and contrary to what the
average dipshit may think, not all people who drive older cars such as
mine drive them because they have no economic alternative; some of us do so for
very carefully intended, deliberate reasons that have nothing at all to
do with income or earning power.
(right: Deejay 'smiling' after getting his Sunday
'chew-chew')
In my case, I prefer my 23 year old
Honda Civic because it is small and efficient for a civic urban setting, and is
environmentally less harmful than many vehicles; I can furthermore keep it
easily and inexpensively maintained, readily use it for a wide range of utility
functions (including and not least in importance, using it to transport our two
Huskies everywhere); additionally I just find it aesthetically pleasing (E.F.
Schumacher would ascribe to it "pleasing smallness on a human scale",
while the Japanese would probably refer to it simply as "Shibumi") and plain fun
to drive.
At any rate, the carburetor idle circuit,
after 23 years of use, had suddenly become problematic--requiring a visit to my
preferred garage in a nearby community. As I drove off the freeway, followed too
closely by a large, black SUV hot on my bumper, I came to a complete stop at a
stoplight just as the light changed from red to green. The Honda's engine
promptly died at this critical moment, whereupon the large black Mercedes-Benz
SUV behind me (with shaded windows) went absolutely berserk, its (unseen) driver
laying down on the horn in one VERY aggravating blast that went on continuously
and uninterrupted. I wasn't in the best of moods, so I resolutely set the
parking brake and got out of my car to go back and tell the driver to calm down
while I restarted the engine. At this point I saw that the driver of the big
black behemoth was this little field-mouse sized young Asian-American
woman. Seeing me approach with a grim scowl, she must have thought that I was
going to commit an act of road-rage, or something equally homicidal in nature,
for quick as a flash, she wheeled around me and dashed off down the street,
nearly taking me out with her car's battle tank-like fender in the process.
Thoroughly steamed up about that, I got back into my Honda, restarted
the engine, and drove the remainder of two blocks to our home, reflecting on the
insane sense of angst-ridden, no-brain reactivity that serves many
people today instead of intelligently applied situational awareness.
At this point in my
ruminatory rant, the chemical log on the fire was now burning low and I switched
the tube off, having earlier switched from commercial channels to an excellent
documentary video on the life of brilliant acoustical physicist Dr. Harvey
Fletcher (former head of Bell Laboratories, who gave the world Stereophonic
Sound and many important discoveries). It was time to turn off the 'grousing
faucet' and go to bed. The dogs were still faithfully reposed near my feet like
great furry foot warmers, but the minute the video player went off they both
came to full alert, well aware that it was time for the nightly bedtime snack
that brings their day (and mine) to another close.
(above left: Laika & Deejay in "Buster the Wonder
Honda")
Be well friends, as the so-called happy holiday
season begins,
and PLEASE remember to daily exercise your natural powers of critical awareness
in the conduct of your lives--always, always, always! Besides, your life is far
too brief, yet too immeasurably important to leave decisions affecting your
basic happiness in the hands of the commercial and corporate brain
massagers, who fill our thoughts and dreams with suggestively alluring
lies and veiled half-truths in pursuit of sales and marketing goals. Remember
also that that idiot stalled in front of your great big black monster of an SUV
may well be me. I have two great big dogs with me in that small little orange
car and may not feel so 'generously' disposed to the next idiot car-honker who
can't wait to go nowhere fast. And that's the simple warp and 'woof' of
things for the moment: another sad commentary on the devolution of
American society, I'm afraid. Aren't you glad you live in America? Don't you
wish everyone did? In fact, don't you wish the whole world was American? Well
don't you? DON'T YOU?!.......
(Caution: Irony and
occasional sarcasm found on this page may sometimes be mistaken for sincerity,
with potentially devastating consequences! A pubic cervix message provided in
your best interests by this website.)
November 2002
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