Posts: 2031
From: Sydney, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 04-26-2006 07:40 PM               

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As I seem to be having unresolved communications problems with Ken Havekotte's email server, perhaps I could throw this question into the forum for general discussion, as this is a subject Chris Dubbs and I are writing about in our animals-in-space book, due out early next year.

When physiological data on the condition of Laika aboard Sputnik II was transmitted to Earth, was this the first time such direct transmission had occurred? I know that data was collected on animals in the earlier Albert rocket program at White Sands, but this telemetry had to be physically recovered post-flight from the nose cone (if it survived or was not lost in the desert). So would we be right in suggesting that the direct transmission of data on Laika's condition was the first time this had occurred from space?

Posts: 2031
From: Sydney, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003

Posts: 1104
From: Walsall, West Midlands, UK
Registered: Dec 2002

Posts: 1104
From: Walsall, West Midlands, UK
Registered: Dec 2002

Posts: 2031
From: Sydney, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 04-29-2006 06:54 PM               

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Hi Nick,

A couple of those sites are familiar to me, but the one on Soviet telemetry made for absorbing reading. Unfortunately, while a couple of the sites mention telemetry being transmitted to the ground, none state categorically that this was the first time this had occurred involving a living creature in space.

I noticed also that some of those sites mentioned Laika being filmed by a slow-frame camera, but as Chris Dubbs pointed out in some collectSPACE postings a while back, this is quite incorrect. The confusion lies in the fact that Belka and Strelka were filmed on Korabl-Sputnik II,which was in reality Sputnik V.

But I certainly appreciate your response to my query.

Colin

[This message has been edited by ColinBurgess (edited April 29, 2006).]