Explanation: One of the first creatures to reach space from planet earth was a Soviet stray dog by the name of Laika, whose vital signals were to be monitored to ensure data would provide a rough understanding of the safety precautions necessary when later sending humans to space.
Unfortunately, the project was designed without any intention of retrieving Laika after the mission, unlike later projects. The poor dog was doomed to die the moment she was chosen. One of the managers of the Soviet space program would later lament:
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 shouldn't have done it [...] We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog.
