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Photographer

AS WE celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing (see “Apollo 11 only made it to the moon through diabolically hard practice“), it is easy to forget that the US’s bitter ideological rival, the Soviet Union, made the decisive first moves in the space race. And that wouldn’t have been possible without a uniquely Soviet team of heroes: the space dogs.

Laika, a stray from the streets of Moscow, was the most famous of their kind. On 3 November 1957, less than a month after the Soviets launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, she became the first animal to orbit Earth.

For years, the official story was that Laika died painlessly after about a week in orbit. In 2002, it emerged that she probably survived for only a few hours before the heat and stress got to her.

Back on the ground, Laika gained a fanatical following – as did Belka and Strelka, two dogs who, in 1960, returned home safely after a day orbiting Earth aboard Sputnik 5. The space dogs were celebrated on stamps, posters, clocks and all manner of memorabilia. Laika even had her own brand of cigarettes, sold until the 1990s.

Photographer Martin Parr has acquired an extensive collection of space dog kitsch, the result of a “20-year obsession”, he says. Together with journalist Richard Hollingham, he has now written the book The story of the celebrated canine cosmonauts. His collection also features in the exhibition The moon and beyond at the Royal Photographic Society in Bristol, UK, until 29 September.