One of the toughest chapters to write, and read, in my book, “Space Oddities”, tells the story of using animals to study spaceflight technologies. There was a few happy stories as well including the story of Pushinka, the Russian space dog. Adding to the story is this clipping from the New York Times from this date in 1963.
As the story goes, in early 1963, President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev were having a heated discussion on some issue. To ease the tension, First Lady Jacqueline walks into the room and starts talking to the Premier. She asks how the Russian space dog Strelka was doing after her flight. Khruschev told her she’s doing fine and recently had a liter of puppies. Jackie got excited and asked that he send the Kennedy’s one of the puppies. A few weeks later, a fluffy white dog named Pushinka (literally translated means “fluffy”) arrives at the White House.
The Kennedy kids loved the dog, even teaching it how to climb up the ladder of a slide and slide down.
Well, Pushinka had a one-night-stand with the Kennedy’s other dog, Charley, and had a liter of puppies herself. The press called them “Pupniks” and on this day 61 years ago, the White House mail room and switchboard was inundated with phone calls. People wanted to adopt one of the space pups.
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