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Author
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Topic: Oleg Gazenko, Soviet space dog trainer (1918-2007)
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ColinBurgess
Member Posts: 2031
From: Sydney, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 12-31-2007 11:59 PM
   
I don't know how this managed to slip under my radar at the time, but I found out today that Dr. Oleg Gazenko, the former Director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow, passed away there on 17 November 2007. Devoting his life and extraordinary talents to biomedicine as applied to space flight, Dr. Gazenko was deeply involved in early Soviet dog flights and later biosatellites, and was said to be the one who selected and helped train Laika. The 50th anniversary of her flight was celebrated just two weeks before his passing.I had the great privilege of meeting and enjoying a long (mostly translated) chat with Dr. Gazenko in Vienna back in 1993, and while I was asking him questions on animal space flights he revealed to me that Laika had died on heat prostration due to torn insulation in her Sputnik 2 spacecraft within hours of being launched. I'd never heard this before, and from such an impeccable source, so I reported my conversation in an issue of the now-defunct "Space Flight News." It subsequently led to a series of articles on Laika's troubled flight by researchers in a number of space-oriented magazines. Dr. Gazenko was a charming and interesting man; polite, and absolutely delighted (albeit modestly) to have been recognised in the midst of dozens of famous cosmonauts at the same convention. A true doyen of the space age has left us, aged 89. |
Chris Dubbs
Member Posts: 145
From: Edinboro, PA USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 01-01-2008 07:24 AM
I'll have to get my radar repaired as well, Colin. Did not catch this. I sent a copy of "Animals in Space" to Gazenko, carried by a NASA friend who was going to Russia in September for the launch of Foton M-3. Gazenko was not still working at the Institute of Biomedical Problems, but maintained his ties. I never found out if he got the book and had a chance to see how prominently his pioneering efforts were featured in it. I'd like to think he did, and that's the way I'll picture it. | |
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