Explaining The Past on Instagram: "In 1957, during the early stages of the Cold War, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, the second spacecraft ever sent into orbit — and the first to carry a living creature. The passenger was Laika, a stray dog found on the streets of Moscow and selected because small, resilient dogs handled stress well during testing. The mission had no recovery system. Soviet engineers knew from the beginning that Laika would not return to Earth. At the time, scientists were