According to the newly published autobiography of Yang Liwei, head of China's first manned space mission in 2003, the crew's meals included dog meat from Huajiang county, which is renowned for its health benefits.
The meat is claimed to "cure high blood pressure, help build up old people's health, and reduce frequent urination," handy on a long voyage.

A Chinese space menu from 2009 includes Huajiang dog, as well as some rather more appealing fare. It certainly sounds tastier than what the Americans get, although the actual logistics of cooking complex dishes in space is not explained:
Day One: Lotus root porridge, crispy tofu with spring onions, braised yellow croaker fish, pork ribs with seaweed, spinach with minced garlic.
Day Two: Spicy pig skin, braised duck neck, hairy crab with ginger, chicken liver with chilli, pine nuts with sweetcorn, three-flavour soup.
Day Three: Poached egg in fermented rice soup, Harbin sausage, Huajiang dog, baby cuttlefish casserole, eel with green pepper, spicy beans with dried tofu.
Apples, pears and oranges served with every meal, as well as rice, noodles, sweet potatoes.
Laika, the sole passenger of Sputnik 2 in 1957, was the first dog in space.
[the Telegraph via Fuchsia Dunlop]

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There ain't no better eatin' then a red nosed dog!
I've been told by my Laotian friend that black dogs were best. He never mentioned red-noses.
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It's a good thing vomit will burn up on re-entry.
Isn't it funny how people have opinions.
Who cares what they eat, so long as it's not human?
So, the Chinese eat dog, a well-established fact. Why, precisely, is this gracing the top sties from Popsci? How is this relevant scientific journalism? It's a fair bit short of racially insulting, but this story is anything but relevant, and relies mostly upon readers' ignorance.
And Europeans love rotten milk and horse meat.
A pet dog is like a pet bird is unlike a chicken dinner.
Why is this being made into an issue?
the only ignorance is people having issues with people having issues. who care's if this isn't scientific journalism. writers will write about what they find interesting. they will write about what they want if you don't like it then don't read it.
It's really shocking news never had thought that the most faithful animal has too many other benefitsgrea to know about the benefits about dog from: data recovery
Did this actually cause a controversy? I thought it was fairly well-known that in certain areas in China, dog was considered a delicacy. This isn't the family pet that they're cooking, these dogs are raised for their meat, just like chickens and cows are here.
dogs, cats, horses, whales, sharks, dolphins, roaches, scorpions, anything is fair game.
no orange chicken? what a jip...
i heard there was a dog going to space and hes bringing some tasty human meat.
The dog is probably the best thing on the menu.
Laika, the sole passenger of Sputnik 2 in 1957. Sputnik 2 was not designed to be retrievable, and Laika had always been intended to die.
Laika died within hours after launch from overheating, possibly due to a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload. The true cause and time of her death was not made public until 2002.
What, no tiger penis?
Didn't see the movie myself, but with the advent of the recent Chihihuahua movie, I mentioned o/l that the Aztecs probably raised the dogs for food.
Sure enough, somebody comes back with a post to an article somewhere that claims just that. Go figure.
Actually, I found the menu entry of "Hairy Crab" a bit
more disturbing. That sounds truly ghastly.
So what Pop-sci? Ever heard of pearlie oysters? Americans have been known to eat bull and boar testicles, tongue, heart, horses, bears, etc.