The Key West Citizen

Unnecessary Sacrifice Rapped

Sputnik Passenger Rouses Dog Lovers

NEW YORK (AP)—Animal lovers around the world are protesting Russia's use of a dog as a passenger in its new earth satellite.

Warren W. McSpadden, general manager of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said yesterday a protest to the Soviet Union would be sent through the State Department.

McSpadden said the dog is faced with "unnecessary sacrifice" or with "great pain and suffering should it survive."

Sending a dog to outer space, he said, "cannot possibly advance human health and welfare."

In another protest, telegraphed to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, Mrs. D. Kibbe Riddell, President of Bide-a-Wee Assn., Inc., condemned this atrocity.

Mrs. Riddell said the Russian government "has once again proved its inhumanity." Her association maintains an adoption center for animals in Manhattan.

In London, the National Canine Defense League asked dog-lovers everywhere to observe a minute of silence each day on behalf of Curly.

The organization said it will send a delegation marching on the Soviet Embassy to condemn use of the dog on the artificial moon.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said at Liverpool it was being flooded with protest calls. An official said the possibility of Curly's being burned by cosmic rays "are too horrible to contemplate."

He said the Soviet Union should be "forced to tell the world why human volunteers or undesirables could not be used instead of helpless animals."

In Oslo, the Norwegian Society (Continued On Page Five)

She's Housed In Air-Conditioned Casing
Dog
Survives
Initial
Blast
In Russian
Rocket
Satellite

By ROY ESSOYAN
MOSCOW (The Soviet Union reported today that its space-traveling dog was faring well inside the half-ton rocket satellite circling the earth just over 1,000 miles out in space.

Moscow radio said the small fluffy haired passenger inside Sputnik II survived the shock of being blasted into space and her breathing, heartbeat and blood pressure were normal.

Housed in an air-conditioned casing the dog hurtled around the earth at a speed of 17,840 miles an hour.

Signals from two radios in the satellite are sending scientific data about the dog's reactions and space conditions, the Russians said. Monitors picked up a "beep, beep" on one frequency and a hissing sound from another.

As the spectacular achievement signaled the opening of the era of space travel, a Soviet scientist hinted the dog may parachute safely back to earth.

The Soviet Communist party newspaper Pravda said that Soviet scientists may send apes up in future satellites to study biological effects of space travel.

Pravda added that such rapidly breeding small creatures as rodents, mollusks and insects also may be sent aloft. This, the article said, will give a "good possibility for genetic studies."

In another technological claim, the Soviet government announced that it had put into operation "the largest passenger aircraft in the world," powered by four prop-jet engines. The announcement said the plane can transport 120 passengers from Moscow to New York in 10 to 12 hours.

The Russians originally announced that Sputnik II, launched at about 7:38 a.m. yesterday - 11:38 p.m. Saturday EST - was in an orbit reaching 923 miles out. Later this maximum distance was revised to 1,056 miles.

The new satellite weighs 1,120.29 pounds and circles the earth in 103.7 minutes, the Russians said.

The first Soviet satellite, launched Oct. 4, weighs 184 pounds, has an orbit reaching out 560 miles, moves at 18,000 miles an hour and circles the earth every 96.2 minutes.

Sputnik I, still circling although its radio now is dead, is a globe sent aloft by a three-stage rocket. Two pieces of the rocket apparently still are orbiting with it.

The second satellite, described by the Russians as "the last stage of the carrier rocket," apparently is shaped like a rocket.

Both baby moons travel at an angle of 65 degrees to the equator. Sputnik I moves north to south. The direction of Sputnik II has not been stated.

One Moscow broadcast said the new satellite was built to orbit longer than its predecessor, which has completed about 500 circuits of the globe.

Instruments aboard Sputnik II were reported designed to send information about cosmic, ultraviolet and X-rays, temperature and pressure and measurements of the earth.

The two radios send on frequencies of 40,002 and 20,005 kilocycles with wave lengths of about 7.5 and 15 meters. Beeps on one frequency were heard in Tokyo 23 minutes after the first Moscow announcement. The beep lasts three-tenths of a second and is followed by a pause of the same length.

A. A. Blagonravov, one of the Soviet Union's top scientists, said the hissing sound on the second frequency provides information about the dog's condition. He hinted the dog eventually may be ejected from the satellite to parachute back to earth. The dog is being fed artificially.

The Russians introduced the dog to a radio audience recently and said she was one of several which had been sent up in rockets and parachuted to earth in training for the satellite launching.

The Moscow broadcasts said information gathered by the new baby moon will make more understandable to man "the unfathomed natural processes going on in the cosmos."

The studies are being made in conformity with the International Geophysical Year program, an announcement said.

Pravda said Russia's stepped-up program for training engineers had a lot to do with the satellite launchings.

"The number of engineering graduates in the Soviet Union rose from 36,000 in 1950 to 71,000 in 1956," the Communist party newspaper declared. "In the United States it fell during the same period from 53,000 to 26,000."

Sputnik Passenger
(Continued from Page One)

for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals called a meeting to discuss the space dog. The Secretary declared: "I don't know what we will do. I don't know what we can do, but this is a bad business. Maybe we can prevent it happening again."

While other groups were voicing similar sentiments, Moscow radio reported the dog was still alive and doing fine.

British television stations carried man-in-the-street interviews with shocked dog lovers. Some suggested a human volunteer should have been sent instead of the dog.