Laika

Acrylic

Laika the Soviet space dog. She was the first animal to orbit the earth and the first to die there. She was a mutt taken off the streets of Russia and trained to handle flight. Originally it was stated that she died when her oxygen ran out, or that she had been euthanized. She had actually died 6-7 hours into the flight due to stress and over heating because the cooling system failed to activate.

One of the scientists involved, Oleg Gazenko, stated afterwords:
Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't have done it... We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog.

The craft was not designed to be retrievable. They had always intended for her to die.