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50 Years Ago, Sputnik Was an Improvised Triumph

Posted by kdawson on from the gum-and-baling-wire dept.

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."

3 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds of Sputnik by gbobeck · · Score: 5, Informative

    Amsat.org has a page which features a little blurb as well as sounds from the first satellites. For Sputnik, there are two signal recordings.

    See http://www.amsat.org/amsat/features/sounds/firstsat.html
    This page has the two recordings both in .wav and .ra formats.

    --
    Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
  2. Red Moon Rising - BBC Radio4 by NoNeeeed · · Score: 5, Informative

    This week's book of the week on Radio 4 is "Red Moon Rising", which is all about the building of Sputnik.

    Available on Listen Again each day: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/book_week.shtml

    --
    Paul Leader
  3. Re:A lot of the Russian program was improvised by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, a lot of Russian space technology was built on old technologies and as a result was quite reliable. For example, the R-7 rocket used to launch Sputnik used technologies from 20-s and there's a story that burning logs were used to ignite the first stage engines. But at the same time computer modeling (yes, even at that time!) was used to compute boosters parameters.

    BTW, R-7 and its successors have become the most successful launch systems so far.