Spacemen all over the world gave homage to the first Earthling to fly into space more than half a century ago when a monument was put up in tribute to this brave space traveler near Moscow's Military Medicine Institute last April 12.

Nope, it wasn't a human being that the monument was dedicated to, but rather a stray dog named Laika. Long before the first human was blasted off into space, Laika proved that living beings could survive being launched into space and experience weightlessness more than fifty years ago in November 3, 1957.

The monument of Laika was unveiled during the eve of Cosmonauts' Day, which marked Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin's first manned space flight. Venerable academics were seen on Russia's official RTR channel laying flowers at the Vostok replica with the agile and good-natured dog strapped into it.

The Russian space program favored Laika over the United States' own primates-based tests due to the ease of training dogs over a monkey's natural ill-mannered tendency. While Laika did not survive the historic flight, the dog definitely proved to be the best friend of both man and space pioneers alike.