Walking in the space

Another victory of soviet science was successful mission of Voskhod 2 spacecraft with Belyaev and Leonov on board. The purpose of Voskhod was to deliver astronauts to the orbit and provide conditions for entering human the outer space.

The Voskhod 2 spacecraft was a Vostok spacecraft with a backup, solid fuel retrorocket, attached atop the descent module. The ejection seat was removed and two seats were added, (at a 90-degree angle relative to the Vostok crew seats position). An inflatable exterior airlock was also added to the descent module opposite the entry hatch. After use, the airlock was jettisoned. There was no provision for crew escape in the event of a launch or landing emergency. A solid fuel braking rocket was also added to the parachute lines to provide for a softer landing at touchdown. This was necessary because, unlike the Vostok, the crew lands with the Voskhod descent module.

The Voskhod 2 spacecraft carrying Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov was launched at 18 March 1965 from Baikonur. The main aim of its launch was to investigate the possibility of outer space walk. This flight was first and unique – no one dared yet to put human out of the space ship.

Ninety minutes after the launch, Leonov became the first person to walk in space, floating freely outside the Voskhod capsule for more than ten minutes high above the Earth.

When Leonov attempted to return to the capsule he could not because the pressure difference between the air in his space suit, and the vacuum of space, expanded the suit, making it so rigid he could not work his fingers. Eventually he bled some of the air out of the suit and was able to close the lock's outer hatch. By the time Leonov ended his spacewalk it had lasted over twenty minutes.

During re-entry the onboard computer for the Voskhod malfunctioned and cosmonauts had to land units by themselves. Because of that the capsule landed over 600 miles off course in a remote section of the Ural Mountains. After two days and a cold night in the wilderness the cosmonauts were finally rescued.

For this heroic flight Leonov and Belyaev received government rewards.

Belka and Strelka

During the 1950s and 1960s the USSR used a number of dogs for sub-orbital and orbital space flights to determine whether human spaceflight was feasible. In this period, the Soviet Union launched missions with passenger slots for at least 57 dogs. The actual number of dogs in space is smaller, as some dogs flew more than once. Most survived; the few that died were lost mostly through technical failures, according to the parameters of the test.

Dogs were the preferred animal for the experiments because scientists felt dogs were well suited to endure long periods of inactivity. Their training included standing still for long periods of time, wearing space suits, being placed in simulators that acted like a rocket during launch, riding in centrifuges that simulated the high acceleration of a rocket launch and being kept in progressively smaller cages to prepare them for the confines of the space module. Dogs that flew in orbit were fed a nutritious jelly-like protein.

Belka (Белка, literally, "Squirrel" or, alternately, "Whitey") and Strelka (Стрелка, "Arrow") spent a day in space aboard Korabl-Sputnik-2 (Sputnik 5) on August 19, 1960 before safely returning to Earth.

They were accompanied by a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plants and fungi. All passengers survived. They were the first Earth-born creatures to go into orbit and return alive.

Strelka went on to have six puppies with a male dog named Pushok who participated in many ground-based space experiments, but never made it into space.^] One of the pups was named Pushinka (Пушинка, "Fluffy") and was presented to President John F. Kennedy's daughter Caroline by Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. A Cold War romance bloomed between Pushinka and a Kennedy dog named Charlie resulting in the birth of 4 pups that JFK referred to jokingly as pupniks. Two of their pups, Butterfly and  Streaker were given away to children in the Midwest. The other two puppies, White Tips and Blackie, stayed at the Kennedy home on Squaw Island but were eventually given away to family friends. Pushinka's descendants are still living today. A photo of descendants of some of the Space Dogs is on display at the Zvezda Museum outside Moscow.