Whilst Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are rightly hailed as being the first men to step on the moon, it was a stray mongrel named Laika who propelled the space race into new territory. On November 3, 1957, the little part-husky dog – who was also known as Curly – became the first animal to orbit Earth when she flew out of the atmosphere in the Soviet Union's Sputnik 2 spacecraft. At the time, the Russians told the world that, until her air supply ran out, the dog had survived for six days inside a capsule which provided her with...
