In article ,
says...

MIR COSMONAUTS FOUND SPUTNIK 2 IN 1998

Kosmodrome, Russia (AT) - Russian officials have disclosed the MIR space station's impact with a supply tug in 1998 was actually an event involving a long lost satellite.

The accident has served to focus media attention on the aging facility's problems, and ultimately led to the transition to the International Space Station in the years that followed. However the recent announcement that the object that crashed into the side of MIR was in fact Sputnik 2 rocked the scientific community. The Soviet Union's second satellite was believed to have burned up in the atmosphere several days after its 1957 launch. Russian scientists now admit that
it had remained in high orbit for almost forty years until it bumped into the side of the MIR space station.

Sputnik 2 achieved great fame for being the first vehicle to carry life into
outer space. The one thousand pound spacecraft put "Laika", a 98 lb.
Rottweiler/Terrier mix into earth orbit. Laika was reported to have perished
when the satellite's thermal cooling unit malfunctioned. New documents now reveal that the frozen dog was successfully revived by the cosmonauts and was brought back to Earth when the crew returned home.

Laika was awarded the Order of Lenin posthumously in 1958. Russian space
official Boris Zukhov announced at a press conference yesterday that she
would now receive the Order of Yeltsin for her contributions to human space flight.

Bull****! Happy April Fools Day to you too. :-P

Jeff
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