Image (Credit): Laika in a training capsule prior to her mission. (Sputnik / Alamy)
On this day in 1960, the Soviet Union sent two dogs into space on a sub-orbital flight – Otvazhnaya and Malyok. Both returned from the trip safely.
Between 1951 and 1966, it is estimated that the Soviets sent 48 dogs into space on both sub-orbital and orbital flights, while China sent only two dogs into space on sub-orbital flights. The United States did not send any dogs into space. Of the 48 Soviet dogs, 20 died in space. Both Chinese dogs survived.
Little Otvazhnaya, which means “brave” in Russian, flew on the most missions of any of the dogs. She flew on five sub-orbital missions between July 1959 and September 1960.
The most famous Soviet space dog, Laika (pictured above), was the first dog to fly on an orbital flight on November 3, 1957. She did not survive the mission.
One of the Russian canine cosmonauts has a link to the Kennedy family. Strelka, one of the first dogs to orbit the Earth and survive, had six puppies, including one named Pushinka, or “Fluffy.” Pushinka was presented as a gift to President John F. Kennedy’s family in 1961.
Image (Credit): Letter from President Kennedy to Soviet Chairman Krushchev thanking him for Pushinka. (JFK Library)
While most of the attention regarding the space race with China revolves around the Moon at the moment, another space race is brewing that will become a big problem for astronomers if the race is successful. This second race is one to place data centers into orbit.
We are fast-tracking ourselves towards the world of Disney’s WALL-E where we have polluted the night sky beyond recognition. Is this really necessary? Do we have other options?
Fortunately, we do, including Google’s planned data center in Texas, which will power itself from renewable energy. Another example is China’s efforts to put data centers in the ocean. Like the night sky, the ocean is a big place with a lot of possibilities if done right.
AI has already brought up enough concerns pertaining to childhood health, jobs for new graduates, and even a real armed Skynet determining its own targets. Do we really need to also surround the planet with more than a million satellites feeding into this questionable new world?
It may be time to take some of these decisions away from the stock market and ponder them for a few a little longer. Even Elon Musk was expressing such concerns in 2023. He signed a letter from the Future of Humanity Institute that stated:
Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders.
That was a smart idea then, and it makes even more sense today before we go crazy spending billions, if not trillions, or dollars on a new space race that re-energizes a questionable technology while blotting out the night sky for those who are willing to look outside of our planetary bubble to learn from the universe.
The Smile spacecraft lifted off on a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 04:52 BST / 05:52 CEST (00:52 local time) on 19 May 2026. The launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to better understand solar storms, geomagnetic storms, and the science of space weather…Smile is a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It will reveal how Earth responds to the streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun, using an X-ray camera to make the world’s first X-ray observations of Earth’s magnetic shield, and an ultraviolet camera to watch the resulting northern lights non-stop for 45 hours at a time.
Nasa announced on Tuesday ambitious plans for three uncrewed lunar missions this year to kickstart construction of a $20bn moon base, and said it had chosen the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to conduct the first...[NASA’s Administrator] said the three missions planned for 2026 would be followed by “more than a dozen” more in the coming years to test systems and equipment. He said the highly successful Artemis II mission last month that sent four astronauts around the moon for the first time since 1972 had been both a catalyst and incentive to advance the moon base plan.
Every morning, clouds roll in, and by evening, they have cleared off. This sounds like a weather forecast for a coastal city here on Earth — but it’s for WASP-94A b, a well-studied gas giant orbiting a star located nearly 700 light-years away. A new study published in the journal Science documents the first detection of repeating cloud cycles on a hot Jupiter exoplanet. The first author of the study is Sagnick Mukherjee, a 51 Pegasi b postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. Mukherjee is part of a research team that analyzed data from the James Webb Space Telescope targeting WASP-94 A b, a gas giant in the constellation Microscopium. The team discovered that the planet’s morning side is blanketed in clouds of magnesium silicate, the same mineral found in common rocks, while its evening side is under clear skies.
Credit: Image by David Yonatan González Aburto from Pixabay.
“At NASA, decades of designing humanoid robots for environments that don’t forgive narrow thinking revealed that the machines that failed were the ones built for a single scenario. The ones that succeeded could multitask and be reprogrammed– for deployment in different settings. The arm built for the Space Shuttle, for example, was designed to position an astronaut who would catch and later release a satellite. It turned out the robot was better at making the catch itself — but positioning astronauts proved useful for other tasks, like repairing the Hubble Space Telescope.”
-Statement by Dr. Robert Ambrose, Chairman of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at alliant and former Chief of the Software, Robotics and Simulation Division at NASA. He was discussing robotics in a Fortune magazine story titled “Former NASA Robotics Chief: America is Building the Wrong Kind of Robots — and China Knows It.” It is nice to see that NASA can teach the private sector a few things about preparing for the future. The agency has a wealth of information that can be shared with the private sector and allied countries. We just need to recognize the treasure trove of information we have accumulated at NASA over the years and do our best to preserve it and build upon it.
NASA released a much-anticipated contract solicitation for a Mars-orbiting spacecraft late last week, kicking off what is sure to be a hotly contested and potentially controversial procurement. At issue is $700 million, already appropriated by Congress, to build a spacecraft, launch it to Mars, and once there to serve as a vehicle to relay communications between the red planet and Earth. But the stakes may be even bigger than this, including the possible resurrection of the recently canceled Mars Sample Return mission. As part of the new solicitation, NASA says it will conduct the acquisition “as a full and open competition.” But will it? That’s the question that several people involved with this procurement process are asking. And it could turn messy, quickly.
A European intravehicular activity (IVA) spacesuit prototype developed under a CNES-initiated programme was transported to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The spacesuit will be tested aboard the station by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot. The EuroSuit project was initiated by CNES in December 2023 as part of the agency’s Spaceship FR programme, which aims to foster the development of core technologies required for future crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit.
The combination of the Shenzhou-23 crewed spacecraft and the Long March-2F Y23 carrier rocket was transferred to the launchpad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Saturday, according to the China Manned Space Agency. All facilities and equipment at the launch site are in good condition. Various pre-launch functional inspections and joint tests will be carried out as scheduled in the coming days. The launch is planned to take place in the coming days.
Update: Here is a podcast version of this story if you sometimes prefer to digest the news in this way. It is created by AI. To note, it’s not replacing anything or anyone. It’s simply offering an option if listening while driving is preferable to you. I do not use AI in the written articles. I will also start posting the latest podcasts in the sidebar.
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