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50 Years Ago, Sputnik Was an Improvised Triumph
caffiend666 sends in an AP article featuring interviews with the old men who launched the first satellite 50 year ago. The story they tell hinges on luck and the drive of one man, Sergei Korolyov, who died in 1966, unheralded in his lifetime. "When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph. But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West... 'At that moment we couldn't fully understand what we had done,' Chertok recalled. 'We felt ecstatic about it only later, when the entire world ran amok'... And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket."
Communist!
May the Maths Be with you!
uhm ... wait ... (annoyed grunt)
Are you trying to tell me that the innovative new business model of "if it builds and fits together, launch it" was not invented by microsoft after all?
Ooookay.
Hey, it's the ghost of Truman coming back from the 50s.
*prepares Dispell Ghost of Truman spell*
Begone! The Cold War is over! Your rhetoric rings hollow with no potency or power to incite passion. Begone and take your empty words with you!
Dude, you must invoke the Words of Might "Terrorist", "Microsoft", "patents" or maybe "emacs" to get a reaction here.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
Linux and let's not forget: boobs!
Congratulations for getting 'linux' and 'boobs' into the same sentence. I don't think that's ever been achieved before.
s/RTFA/TFA/
(slaps himself)
Ah yes, RealAudio - a peak of Western audio technology in the times of the Sputnik launch ;-)
I gotta quit reading motorcycle blogs just before reading Slashdot. All I could think was you had a satellite that leaked oil and every time it was in Earth's shadow the electrics would fail. I guess it really was like a 1960s Triumph -- you get it started once and take the hell off, and hope to God it stays running for the whole trip.
This is not my sandwich.
You're doing great! Just one more to make it right:
s/TFA/FA/
c++;
Congratulations for getting 'linux' and 'boobs' into the same sentence. I don't think that's ever been achieved before.
Whereas 'congratulations' and 'boobs' in the same sentence is something that Pamela Anderson is becoming increasingly tired of.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
and no mention of Nancy Luft?
Recall the mass media complaining about possible radioactive fallout over India, some years ago, from a Russian sputnik that was nuclear powered? Today's sputniks are far more powerful then the ones that caused that 1908 Tunguska Explosion because they are nuclear powered and the Russians are not using nuclear power to only spy, no way! Plus today's sputniks are fully computerized and do things much faster. The Special Sputnik Forces of the Russian Military tell me that they care very easily kill over 95% of all Americans, with their sputniks alone, no nukes, without any warning what so ever, in a matter of a few minutes, any time that they care to do so. But the Russians can only vaporize a limited number of cities and then they will cause a nuclear winter sort of event that will kill them, too. - And we couldn't have that now could we? Carrying a dire warning on the very first page that "USA to be annihilated!", this website, http://hometown.aol.com/nancyaluft/, is the home of dedicated net kook and certifiable paranoid Nancy Luft whom, with her genius level IQ (which would account for her excellent grasp of grammar and sentence construction) and her BA (whoo-hoo!) is trying desperately to warn us all of the terrible dangers of Russia's Special Sputnik Forces. Since time immemorial Russian sputniks (which, she tells us early in the piece, means "travelling companion") armed with gamma rays and ray guns have been causing earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, Presidential assassinations, space shuttle disasters and all sorts of plagues and pestilences. They've been at it for centuries, even before the invention of spaceflight and, heck, even before there was a Russia! The Tunguska impact in 1908 for example wasn't a meteor, it was caused by Russian sputniks! MS, cancer, heart attacks, crop circles and every air crash ever have all been carved out by an orbiting army of Russian killer satellites shooting everything that moves with an array of invisible ray beams. They were also responsible for Nostradamus making his predictions, Jesus walking on water, Edgar Cayce healing people by touch alone and Abe Lincoln winning the Civil War. Oh, and they also caused Mt St Helens to explode and shot down the space shuttle Challenger, which she tried to tell people about but they wouldn't listen. And how does Nancy know these things? The Russians are transmitting their thoughts to her by microwave. She's tried writing to various Presidents about all this but, strangely, they just don't take any notice.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Whereas 'congratulations' and 'boobs' in the same sentence is something that Pamela Anderson is becoming increasingly tired of.
And congratulations to you too for getting from Linux to Pamela Anderson. Albeit via the unusual route of 'boobs'.
No, they invented how you can get away with omitting the "fits together" part.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I hate to correct you, but I have heard this at least twice directed to me and a co-worker: "Hey, you Linux boobs, get back to work!"
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Actually, I think ultimate credit goes to the Chinese. After all, they invented gunpowder and were the first to design primitive rockets (i.e. fireworks, artillery), thus paving the way for later rocketeers (the ones that immediately come to mind are Goddard -> von Braun -> US/Soviet military rockets, etc.).
Now that I have your attention, what's the deal now with Vista SP1? Or are you in another department at MS?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
they also used a launch vehicle with 30! engines;
Factorial 30 is indeed a lot of engines.
Stick Men
I see your unnamed Chinese dudes and raise you Archimedes. Because Archimedes = awesome.