Dog’s Heart

The West was still recovering from the blow of Sputnik when Korolev fired another round. The launch of a living being, the little dog Laika, into Earth orbit on a one-way ticket. The confused American reaction paid the price for the power struggle between the Navy and the Air Force. For the time being, the recycling of the Peenemunde scientists was of little consequence; they were used sparingly because they still smelled of Nazism. Much more successful would be President Eisenhower’s move to take space away from the military and entrust it to a civilian organization, NASA. Meanwhile, the unmentionable Korolev continued to accumulate victories and records: the first launch of a human artifact to the Moon, hitting the target on the second attempt; a photographic campaign of the satellite’s hidden face; the first ill-fated missions to Venus and Mars; flights involving the safe re-entry of living beings; and tests of Vostok, the spacecraft that would make the first human leap into space. Triumphs poisoned by a tragedy caused by the excessive interference of political power and, paradoxically, by the excess of thinking heads, far more than in America, in constant conflict with each other and always looking for godfathers.