#spacey stuff

Jupiter

(The little dots are moons)

I MADE A PICTURE

AND THEN I MADE A BOOK COVER FROM IT

Torchship Captain, the third book in Karl K. Gallagher’s Torchship trilogy. The full painting, without the title and the face on top, will be posted when I manage to remember to do it.

In 1957 a dog named Laika was sent to space on Sputnik 2. (Both in photo above)

Laika was the first living creature to break earth's atmosphere and orbit the Earth.

Sadly, Laika died only a few hours after launch. But from that we learned that you could in fact survive traveling to space.

Last year was the 60th anniversary of her sacrifice.

A few years after, on board Sputnik 5, Belka and Strelka (Belka "Whitey" left, Strelka "Little Arrow" right) Along with a couple of rats, 50 mice and a gray rabbit.

The mission was to launch the cosmic passengers into Earth's orbit and land them safely. The mission was an outstanding success, all rats, mice, rabbits and both dogs were unharmed and happy to be back. This proved that not only could we break Earth's atmosphere and head into orbit but also return safely.

Only 8 months after the safe return of the Soviet space dogs on board Sputnik 5, Yuri Gagarin (As seen above) was launched into space on Vostok 1. This marked the first human space flight in history, paving the way for NASA, JAXA, CNSA, ESA, ISRO and other international agencies as well as companies like Space-X and Virgin Galactic in today's modern world.

Without these hero's we'd never have been to the Moon, without going to the Moon the world would be a very different place. We wouldn't have pushed ourselves, created new technologies that lead to the early smart phones, made new alliances that stopped the American cold war with Russia. We would have never seen our world for the pale blue dot that it is.

You are born human, but without humanity. Humanity cannot be taught, it's something that you find in yourself and in others. And those dogs were as much a part of humanity as you or I.