On September 15, 1951, a Soviet rocket was set to launch when one of its two canine passengers was nowhere to be found. Bobik, a dog assigned to that day's flight from the Kapustin Yar test range, had escaped from the site. NASA's history office, which documents this Soviet-era program alongside America's own, says the launch couldn't wait, so a technician found a stray dog wandering near the base canteen and brought her in as a last-minute substitute. They called her ZIB, short for the Russian phrase meaning "Substitute for Missing Dog Bobik." Within hours, she was strapped in and launched.
A missing dog and an unplanned substitute
