Part I

Newton's First Law

Lulu was a potbellied pig, and a content one at that. She had her owner, her food, her normal life. What more could she want?

We think of most pigs as creatures who tend to lay around in the mud and not ask much of anyone. However, experts say that pigs may be some of the smartest animals around-more so even than cats and dogs! Lulu will soon demonstrate just how useful pigs can be.

In 1997, in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, Jo Ann and Jack Altsman were baby-sitting their daughter's pot-bellied pig named Lulu. The bond was formed immediately, and grew so much that Lulu would be protective of her new mother, Jo Ann, when she was needed, some time later. She would also, without meaning to, prove through her hereditary traits and unprecedented actions Isaac Newton's first law of motion.

A little history, first. Long ago, before anyone was worrying about getting into space, people just wondered how the world worked. One of these people was named Isaac Newton.

I wonder why my cat will never move from his spot on the couch.

You probably know about Mr. Newton already. He figured out gravity and established a few laws about how the world worked, including The Universal Law of Gravitation. They are now called "Newton's Laws of Motion".

His first rule about the world was that if something wasn't moving, it would continue not to move unless something made it move.

Don't even try.

Newton set up a few of the first rules for what we now call friction, which is the force two objects give to each other when they rub up. There are four types of friction: static friction, sliding friction, rolling friction, and fluid friction. (see glossary) What kind of friction do you think Lulu had on the road? Oh, wait! Not there yet? Proceed to the next page!

We often think of pigs as unmoving objects, and they generally are, making them the perfect examples of inertia. But on that fateful day of August 4, 1998, Lulu would prove that pigs aren't as lazy as we would think.

Jo Ann's husband was out of town, and the only company she had around were a dog named Bear and Lulu. While baby-sitting Lulu, she collapsed on the floor with a heart attack. Bear began barking nonstop, but Lulu saw it would take more than that to alert the neighbors and took action.

Lulu forced herself out of the yard in a way that left her skin torn and bleeding. She walked over to the road and plunked down as if playing dead until a driver stopped and got out of his car. Then she led him to the trailer where her owner was. The man saw Jo Ann and promptly dialed 911, where she was taken to The Medical Center in Beaver for open-heart surgery. Had 15 more minutes passed, the doctors said, she would have died.

Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object at rest stays at rest unless moved by something else. Lulu was a restful pig and she stayed at rest until she was needed. Lulu lives today as any normal pig would-eating, sleeping, and lying around. Maybe not what one would expect from a hero, but she deserves it.

Part II

Newton's Second Law

On October 4, 1957, the world held its breath.

The United States and the Soviet Union were racing to space, and the first ones to get there would be the Soviet Union, through a small, basketball-sized satellite.

Sputnik was launched.

The sun set on two worlds that night-one of joy and one of acceptance-but not defeat. The Soviet Union was rejoicing, for they had made it to space first. The United States, their competitor, was not done with space yet, but that's another story.

Russia knew it couldn't be the end for them. Sputnik, the satellite they had just launched, was unmanned. The next space trip would not be.

Not so far away from all the celebration, a scruffy brown dog was foraging for food.

She had no idea she would soon be accelerating into space at a speed faster than any other dog. She had no idea she'd be so important.

But soon she would find out.

The scientists in Russia had been told that they needed another flight to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, and that wasn't very far away. Often working without blueprints and simply pulling together a ship that would hopefully work using Sputnik 1 as a reference point, they finally finished Sputnik 2.

All they needed was a passenger. They began looking for strays and would eventually settle with Laika. She would be the first cosmonaut, and even had a special little suit, but would not be as recognized as she deserved.