「ライカ犬」搭乗の人工衛星「スプートニク2号」打ち上げから50年　という記事が2007年に出ていることが分かった。
http://www.afpbb.com/article/environment-science-it/science-technology/2305035/2298731
この時点で、Laikaが打ち上げ後数時間でほぼ死亡した事実もきちんと書かれているようだ。今日調べた結果からは船内の温度が摂氏40度に達したらしいとわかったが、この記事では41度としている。

大気が40度程度なら生きながられようが、狭い室内でほとんどもがくしかできない状況下に置かれた犬にとっては、体温調節の限界を超えてしまい恐怖との闘いもあり、パニック状態で亡くなったらしい記事が多い。

『　公式には、1600キロ上空で1週間のミッションを完了したライカは、計画通りミッションの最後に毒を混ぜたえさを食べて安楽死したことになっていて、そして45年間そのように信じられていた。』とこの記事にあるからそうだったのだろうとあまり当時は問題にされなかったのかも知れない。

それでもいろいろ関連記事を調べていたこんな記事を見つけた。

あまり適当でないような題名かもしれないが、題名の意味を正確に捉えることは意外に私には難しいように思う。ここでまた、初めてヨーロッパへ行く前読んだミラン•クンデラの文章にまた出会うとは！。

For although Laika’space capsule had food, water, and a climate control system designed to support her for several days, it was not engineered to be retrievable, so the dog’s death was a certainty from the outset. For 40 years the Soviets maintained that Laika had died painlessly after several days in orbit, revealing only in 2002 that she succumbed to overheating and panic a few hours after launch.


Sacrificed in the quest to make spaceflight a reality for humans, Laika the dog provoked intense reactions from people who regarded her variously as an “experimental animal,” a “brave scout,” a “faithful servant,” or an “innocent victim.”などと50年も経っただけに最初の発表とはちがう冷静な分析が見られる。

Laikaに関連した音楽の紹介は、最初に衛星軌道を回った犬という評価は変わらないものの、長い年月を経て意味合いが変化しているという視点で語られている。

スプートニク1の成功で西側は威信を揺るがされ、続いて直ぐ後のスプートニク2で周回軌道に犬を放たれ、その時のショックの影響があまりにも多大だったが、時の経過とともにむしろ忘れ去られている面があるともいう。

揺さぶられている時にさらに犬を使った実験を強行され、動物愛護団体の怒りは凄まじかったようだ。たしかに数日分の食料や酸素などを備えてはいたというものの、最初から帰還は想定されず、当の犬にいわば安楽死という「死刑」を以て報いた発想は最初から問題点だった。40年もの間ソ連当局はライカは数日の間は軌道を順調に回り最後に苦痛無く死亡したとしていたのに、2002年になって、カプセルの温度調節が事故で機能せず、昇温に屈して発射後4〜6時間以内位に絶命していたというのだから。

この図は
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/Sputnik2/sputnik2more.html
から引用。
『Since the mid-eighties, music groups in Scandinavia, Spain, Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom have dedicated songs to Laika, and three have adopted her name as their own। This represents considerable name recognition. ‥　』

『Nineteen of these are exclusively instrumental, and the majority of those are electronica in the tradition of the “space music” popularized for the last 20 years or so by Stephen hill in his syndicated program “hearts of Space.”‥』

注釈には
a search across all genres in the Itunes store in January 2008 yielded 23 pieces with Yuri Gagarin’s name in the title, 27 pieces named after Lenin, and 43 referencing Laika.
と書かれている。人を上回っているのである。

そして、Laikaの置かれた位置づけの変化について述べられる。
『But while Laika’s initial celebrity depended heavily on the politically charged and highly publicized circumstances under which she was sent into space, her ongoing resonance derives more from her appeal as a symbol of the timeless human concerns of sacrifice, experimentation, alienation, and loss.』
そして
『Indeed, an analysis of the recent musical tributes to her suggests that the contemporary popular memory of the first space dog has become somewhat uncoupled from the history of Sputnik II.』となってきているという。

『Intended as a satirical observation on the perversity of Czech communism, Milan Kundera’s assertion that “nowadays, history moves at a brisk clip,” while events themselves are “soon forgotten,” offers a telling comment on how timeseems to have accelerated since the end of the last World War while at the same time historical memory has become less stable and, in many contexts, less valued.』などという傾向となり、
『as the song cited for this essay’s second epigraph suggests, by 2005 that story might sound more like a funeral for a friend than an early episode of the quest to send humans into space.』
などとされている。

最近10年間ほどの傾向は、ソビエトが関与した部分の影響が薄らぎ焦点はむしろ一般的な初期の宇宙開発競争へのノスタルジア的傾向であったり、あるいは初めての宇宙空間犬としてのイメージであったりといった側面が強いようである。

『Following the lead of the Leningrad Cowboys, the virtual band Gorillaz titled their hit remix album of 2002 Laika Come Home, combining the name of the Soviet space dog with the title commonly associated with the anglo-american canine hero Lassie.』

『the most explicit homage to the space dog and her legacy belongs to the eclectic British quartet, Laika, which uses sampling and electronics to achieve a celestial, innovative sound and features an image of the dog on all of its album covers. Founded in 1994, the group released five albums before “taking a break” in November 2007, the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik II.』

The String Quartet Tribute to Arcade Fire's Funeral | Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ज़६९४क़्ब्य्क़्न्न८

『as for the name, Margaret Fiedler and Guy Fixsen explain their choice as follows:
[W]e liked the sound of the word and we liked the association with being “out there” in terms of experimentation while at the same time being a warm furry organic thing . . . the other reason we like the name is that it was probably the most high profile animal experiment ever—Laika died up there in her capsule—and we are strong believers in animal rights and things that seem kind of obvious to us, like not eating them।』
『In many of these songs, Laika is no longer a stray dog captured for laboratory research, but rather an abused or abandoned pet. Since most people more easily relate to dogs as pets or companions than as research subjects, this slippage facilitates an emotional connection with Laika’s experience even as it obscures the reality of her life.』

『as the Soviet particulars of Laika’s story recede from the popular consciousness, musicians seem increasingly inclined to link her to more universal human concerns and struggles।』

『a rescue organization for homeless animals in Moscow chose Laika for its Web site logo because, “she represents for us the plight of homeless animals everywhere—abandoned or exploited, but rarely treated with the respect and compassion which all living creatures deserve।”』

『and then there is akino arai’s song “Sputnik,” which appeared on her Raining Platinum album in 2000। In a manner perhaps befitting a famous anime singer, the real, the imaginary, and the fabricated are interwoven in this song of lost (human?) love.』新居昭乃
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=६ज़्फ़्स्न्त्ल्होक़्क़्

結語の部分
『a song of human longing that invokes a fictitious dog to commemorate a real one might be the ultimate tribute to a global celebrity whose entire history is built on irony. For not only is Laika the dog a more meaningful figure—at least in the popular imagination—than the many human forces associated with her voyage, but, even more paradoxically, it seems that by perishing in space, she has become eternal. Laika endures as a symbol of futuristic adventure, sacrifice, and experimentation, as a foil for human anxieties about abused animals and pet dogs, and as a timeless echo of a unique historical moment. But in today’s popular culture, the particulars of that moment seem to have been far easier to metabolize than the reality of sending “man’s best friend” on a one way trip to outer space. Like Oscar Wilde, a figure synonymous with wit and gay identity, Laika has become an iconic figure largely divorced from historical specifics. her continued presence in the human imagination depends on her absence, on the bizarre and public circumstances of her demise, and on the contradictions between the grim realities of her life and people’s idealized conceptions of dogs. In contemporary global culture, the memory of the first space dog remains vibrant, even as the historical particulars surrounding her place in the Space age begin to fade.』