Science: Up & Down
A five-ton Soviet space vehicle carrying a female dog named Chernushka (Blackie) and "other biological objects" last week spun into a low orbit around the earth. Announced the U.S.S.R.: "After fulfilling the outlined research program, the vessel landed on command at a preset area of the Soviet Union on the same day.
The experimental animal feels well.'' Said a Russian radio announcer: "The chief aim was to further perfect spaceships and to establish on them a system that will provide necessary conditions for man's flight.'' All well and good—but on the basis of announced results, hardly more impressive than the Soviets' own feat of last Aug. 20, when they landed two dogs from orbit in a spaceship weighing almost as much as the current one.
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GABRIEL SILVA, Colombia's defense minister, responding to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's claim that the U.S. sent an unmanned plane into Venezuelan airspace
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