About this item
Laika began her life as a stray dog on the streets of Moscow and died in 1957 aboard the Soviet satellite Sputnik II. Initially the USSR reported that Laika, the first animal to orbit the earth, had survived in space for seven days, providing valuable data that would make future manned space flight possible. People believed that Laika died a painless death as her oxygen ran out. Only in recent decades has the real story become public: Laika died after only a few hours in orbit when her capsule overheated. Laika's Window positions Laika as a long overdue hero for leading the way to human space exploration.Kurt Caswell examines Laika's life and death and the speculation surrounding both. Profiling the scientists behind Sputnik II, he studies the political climate driven by the Cold War and the Space Race that expedited the satellite's development.
About the Author
Kurt Caswell was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, and grew up in the Cascade Range in Oregon. He has worked as a teacher in Hokkaido, Japan; on the Navajo Reservation; and at schools in Arizona, California, and Wyoming. He holds an MA in English from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, and an MFA in literature and creative writing from Bennington College, where he was recipient of the Lucy Grealy Memorial Scholarship. He was a 2001 fellow at Fishtrap writers' conference, and a 2007 fellow at the MacDowell Colony. He has been nominated for six Pushcart Prizes.Caswell's newest book of nonfiction is LAIKA'S WINDOW: THE LEGACY OF A SOVIET SPACE DOG. He is also the author of GETTING TO GREY OWL: JOURNEYS ON FOUR CONTINENTS, IN THE SUN'S HOUSE: MY YEAR TEACHING ON THE NAVAJO RESERVATION, and AN INSIDE PASSAGE, which won the 2008 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize.He has taught in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is professor of creative writing and literature in the Honors College at Texas Tech University. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.
