Brave Cosmonaut Belka after her trip to space, the Soviet Union, 1960

Two! Actually, numerous animals survived Soviet space travel.

The fact is that such losses weigh heavily on the minds of the scientists who worked with the animals, with even accidental deaths being gut-wrenching for the men and women who send the brave little fellas up. For that reason, incidents like Laika aside, generally an attempt is at least made to retrieve the space explorers who voyage into the unknown.