Belka is, along with Strelka, one of the two main protagonists of the Space Dogs franchise. She is a circus dog who ended up lost in the streets, captured and trained to become an astronaut as part of the Soviet space program. Making friends with a stray dog named Strelka, the two became the first living creatures to go to space and come back alive against all odds.
In the first movie, she was voiced by Anna Bolshova in Russian and dubbed into English by Chloe Grace.
Biography[]
Past[]
Belka was born into a family of circus dogs, and lived a privileged life. She was popular in the Moscow circus she worked in, though she also had a fear of fire which she couldn't beat in order to jump through a fire ring for an act.
Space Dogs (2010)[]
During a performance in 1960, Belka was picked to fly a rocket. Due to mixing up the rocket's controls, she accidentally hit turbo instead of brakes and flew out of the circus, crash-landing into a sandbox. There, she met a stray dog named Strelka and her rat friend Lenny. While she didn't get along with them at first, the three had to stick together to survive in the streets, until they were caught by a dogcatcher and put on a train to Kazakhstan. There they were imprisoned in the space research center as three of the dog cadets undergoing training to become space dogs. Belka hoped to reunite with her friends in the circus by achieving such fame, but the commanding officer Kazbek hindered her progress, ostensibly because he found her unfit for space travel, but the truth was that he didn't want Belka to die like every space dog before her. Two other cadets, Bulya and Mulya, also made sure the other cadidates would get disqualified, but Belka stuck together with Strelka and Lenny, and the three managed to beat them and become astronauts.
On August 19, 1960, the three animals were launched into space on "Sputnik-5" (with Kazbek as a stowaway). As their flight neared its end, however, Strelka, confident that her father lived among the stars, took over the spaceship's controls and attempted to reach him, in spite of Kazbek trying to stop her. "Sputnik-5" eventually collided with meteors and caught fire. Belka had to conquer her fear of fire to maneuver the ship through the meteor shower while others were putting out the fire. As the flight neared its end, Belka and Kazbek realized they were falling in love with each other, while Strelka was encouraged by her friend to "talk" to her father. Back on Earth, Belka and Strelka were hailed as heroes and reunited with their loved and close ones. Belka and Kazbek eventually had a son named Pushok, who was given away by Khrushev to John Kennedy's daughter as a gift.
Space Dogs. Adventure to the Moon[]
After multiple objects on Earth, including a phone booth with Lenny inside, ended up being abducted and brought to the Moon, Belka and Strelka were apprehended by the KGB and brought to the Plesetsk cosmodrome. There, they learned from its head that Kazbek was sent to the Moon to pilot the moon rover, but had disappeared, with authorities suspecting he had switched sides and joined the Americans, helping them abduct objects to the Moon. The dogs refused to cooperate and escaped. After learning that the authorities planned to kill Kazbek, Belka and Strelka stole the space rocket and flew to the Moon to save him. On the Moon, Belka and Strelka fought the robot who was the real culprit behind the abductions, and reunited with Kazbek, Pushok and Lenny. Pushok revealed that the robot's pilot was an alien kid who lost his parents and was trying to send them a distress signal. Sympathizing with the alien, Belka, her friends and the American chimp astronaut Chip joined efforts to help him. After the alien's parents took him home, all Earth animals returned to their home planet as well.
Space Dogs. Return to Earth[]
After recovering valuable samples from Enceladus, Belka and Strelka made their way to Earth. Due to mistakes made by the former, their commander promoted Strelka to be the team's commander, and issued an order to research an anomaly in the vicinity of Cuba - a freak vortex has been sucking up all water in the Atlantic Ocean. The astronauts ended up crash-landing, and later captured by pirates, but escaped with Lenny's help. They were all, however, sucked by the vortex into the lair of its creators - two aliens from a planet that had lost its own water, which is why they were stealing water from Atlantic Ocean. The dogs convinced one of the aliens, Pumbary, to free them so they could bring them samples from Enceladus. When they presented the case to Pumbary's partner Croakagy, it was empty, convincing him that the Earthlings were lying. Suddenly, Lenny's girlfriend Maria stole Croakagy's ray gun and accidentally shot up the spaceship's control systems. Belka managed to make the ship come to surface by convincing the aliens to eject the stolen water back in its place in exchange for one last sample of concentrated water from Enceladus that Maria had stolen, more than enough to save their planet. She later helped the aliens escape before the military could blow up their vessel, and reunited with her commander. As the dogs failed both their assignments, the commander prepared to punish Strelka, but Belka argued that she shared blame and should be punished equally. As a result, both were reassigned to serve in Cuba, but didn't think of it as a punishment, given the weather was welcoming and the locals hailed them as heroes.
Other media[]
Space Dogs: Family[]
Belka is a secondary character in this TV series, as it mostly focuses on the life of her children - Dina, Rex and Bublik. Sometimes she provides her children with important life lessons or grounds them when they do something wrong.
Space Dogs: Mysteries of the Cosmos[]
Belka is one of the main characters, living on the Moon base built as part of a joint Roskosmos/NASA project and exploring the Moon with her friends.
Personality[]
Belka started off as nice and friendly, but somewhat vain and spoiled. Going though the hardships of life as a stray dog and a space cadet changed her for the better, however. She used her newfound courage to save her friends and the entire planet multiple times. Belka strongly believes in teamwork and encourages others to do as well. She doesn't always get along with Strelka and Lenny, but they remain good friends nonetheless.
Trivia[]
- Belka is very loosely based on the real-life dog of the same name that, alongside Strelka, was the first to complete an orbital flight and survive it.
External Links[]
- Belka on the Near Pure Good Wiki