Somewhere in the Russian hinterland last week a giant rocket hurled aloft a five-ton spaceship containing two dogs named Pchelka (Little Bee) and Mushka (Little Fly), a quantity of other unspecified plants and animals, and myriad electronic gadgets for keeping radio tab on the passengers.
It was the third of its kind. The first, launched last May with a dummy astronaut aboard, went out of control and was not recovered. Cosmic Ship II, launched in August with animal passengers, was safely lowered to earth, and Nikita Khrushchev boasted that the launching was "a step to man's flight into space." To a newsman's...
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