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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."
Who were, and remain, worthy competitors and partners as we reach to the stars.
Congratulations are due on the anniversary of this achievement and to their many achievements since. May they have many more, and may they help elevate this world and all that are in it.
When you look at the history of Soviet space exploration, you often get the impression that "it builds and fits together, launch it" was more often than not the deciding factor.
It's kinda easier if you only have to announce launches AFTER they were successful. If it ain't, it's a test launch. Just like a lot of people play Minigolf.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And then America got their ass in gear and realized that science is important and started a program that vastly improved science education and learning science became the "cool" thing to do.
There were some benefits in the existence of the Soviet Union.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Sputnik was a wonderful achievement and deserves to be commemorated. Read here 10 ways you can commemorate Sputnik:
http://rocketry.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/all-things-sputnik/
Thing is, we are living in the most peaceful era in human history.
We are living in unexciting times, science and technology are developing slowly and in a linear manner, normal progress instead of breakthroughs. It has been so for the last 50 years. I envy the people that got to see 1880-1960 - they could wake up and see their world upside-down due to a breakthrough(or a war...). Flight, television, nuclear power, space travel, transistors, jets, relativity... They actually had hero-scientists/engineers back then. We don't have a single mainstream-known scientist or engineer nowadays. There is no Bell, Wright, Einstein, Tesla...
Just think about how long it would take to get the atom bomb (or nuclear power station) without WW2, how long it would take to get to space without the cold-war race, how long would it take before we'd have Jet engines without the need for better warplanes.
What is more annoying , is that real space exploration and colonization can only be done in a society that doesn't see money as top priority, and it is sad to see China breaking under pressure and becoming more capitalistic/democratic instead of the the world moving away from that model.
Anyway, the next 40 years will be a total waste. Corporations and not governments direct research nowadays, so don't expect significant space exploration/travel in the near future. Bleh
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Makes you wonder what the face of space exploration would look like today if Korolyov had survived long enough to complete the N-series launchers and actually got them to the moon.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I really enjoy reading all the comments from US /.ers immediately recalling their moon program. Come on! As much as you would like to think that USA was and remains a superior country, you have to admit, that your precious country wasn't the first one to explore space.
That always reminds me of NASA referring to Yuri Gagarin as to "The first European in space". Even 50 years later the US-American ego is badly hurt by Soviet supremacy in space.
Nevertheless, it is one of the greatest achievements of mankind.
Here Comes Sputnik! from the webpage I made 10 years ago at http://www.batnet.com/mfwright/sputnik.html
(and for you old guys with Mosiac and Netscape 1.1, you can see the blinking words of the defunct html blink tag). below some of the text:
The Russians launched the first artificial satellite from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan which demonstrated the technological superiority of Communism. They equipped the Sputnik with transmitters to broadcast on frequencies at 20 and 40 MHz so everyone will know it's up there.
Reactions by Americans:
- Many people did not know how to think of a satellite in orbit. It was too mysterious for them, "What is a 184 pound object in orbit?" "Are they looking down at us?"
- Engineering colleges were flooded with new students the following quarter. It was as if everyone was "joining the army" to take on the Russians in the New Frontier (the govt also provided a lot of funds for engineering schools to fuel new interests in engineering).
- Everyone on Johnston Island in the Pacific were issued sidearms to carry at all times. Johnston Island is so small it only has room for a runway and a hanger for airplanes.
- Students at Case Institute immediately became "Rocket Scientists" and stayed up many late nights discussing various methods of space travel.
- Jim Dawsons, science writer for the Star Tribune, wrote about how his third grade teacher was very nervous at the time. His school at Omaha, Neb., was just a few miles from the Air Force's Strategic Air Command headquarters. A fleet of F-100 fighters appeared in the sky coming right for the school. "MiGs!" the teacher shrieked. "MiGs!" She ran, hysterical, from the classroom, convinced they were about to be nuked by Russian fighter jets. The kids, mostly Air Force brats, ran to the windows to admire the F-100s, the coolest jet of its day.
- Politicians and editorialists began attacking the U.S. educational system for having fallen behind Soviet schools in training people in the sciences and other fields.
- Former President Harry Truman was moved to comment, charging the "persecution" of prominent U.S. scientists by Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the early 1950s had been a setback to the nation's development of satellites and rockets.
- Ross Perot became inspired by the Sputnik to create an electronics dynasty.
- After observing Sputnik, seven year old Franklin Chang-Dìaz of Costa Rica became infatuated with space travel and eventually became a NASA astronaut.
- Tom A. posted on the newsgroup about an American entreprenuer had a "Sputnik" gumball for sale at the local candy store. It was blue and had protrusions sticking out of it to simulate Sputnik's antenna, and it was delicious.
- CIA and other intelligence groups cut down a model of a Sputnik on exhibit at the Brussels World's Fair in early 1958 (a story heard by Paul Dickson, author of "The Shock of the Century")
- Rich Tweedie K6VKT (now a SK) as a high school junior was one of first ham radio operators to hear Sputnik before it was mentioned on American radio and TV news, though many others thought it was a hoax.
Many things happened after October 1957. Here is a brief list of what the United States did:
- Created NASA as the single agency to mobilize U.S. resources to beat the Reds to the stars.
- Created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The purpose behind ARPA was to research new technologies that where too risky to the private industry. In 1969 they created the ARPAnet to research transfer protocols between computers across systems, the predecessor to the Internet.
- Passed the National Defense Education Act.
- Aerospace companies began a new engineer recruitment campaign: All you need is a pulse and a degree.
- United States and Great Britain realign as allies.
- Homer Hickam Jr. and his colleagues created the Big Creek Missile Agency in West Virginia in response to the Sputnik.
There was no mention at the time of Laika dying in orbit, indeed the impression given was thet he safely returned to earth. Later on they mentioned him dying during reentry or euthanized by injection in orbit, or died of fright just after take-off, later on in a book written by one of the Russians who actually worked on the project there is mention of the mutt being electrocuted. - Laika was a she
- Sputnik 2 couldn't reenter, so mechanisms were added to euthanize her. There was enough food and supplies to keep her alive for a week. The mechanism was poisoned food, not electrocution.
- Wikipedia says she died after 5 to 7 hours into the flight because the temperature control system failed.
Also notice that Laika's death is mostly played up in the US, probably becuase of cold war propaganda. The rest of the world knows who Laika is, and is surprised to learn that she died in orbit.
The top US space priority in the late 1950's was developing photo recconnaisance under cover of the Discoverer program.
Other Soviet space achievements include but not limited to:
* First mammal in space (dog)
* First human in space
* First human to orbit earth
* First images of far-side of the moon
* First images from surface of moon (lander)
* First landing and images from surface of another planet (Venus)
Table-ized A.I.