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American Space Age Reaches Fifty Years
Bryansix brings us a story about the 50th anniversary of the United States' entry into the Space Age. On January 31st, 1958, Explorer 1 became the first U.S. satellite to reach orbit. The New York Times is running a similar feature.
"Explorer 1 gave America a chance to recover some of its confidence and prestige after the Sputnik shock, but there was a scientific payoff as well: The data returned by the satellite showed that Earth was not surrounded by a swarm of killer pebbles, as some scientists had feared. However, the cosmic-ray readings hinted at the existence of bands of radiation surrounding the planet - an unexpected result that led to the discovery of the Van Allen Belts."
Ironically, of course, after 50 years of the space age, the Earth is surrounded by a growing number of killer bits of space debris - but it's our own fault. :)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
The Bronze Age turns 4000. People care equally about both milestones. GIFs at 11.
Are you sure we are not in the space age?
We have a space station in orbit with humans on board.
We have interplanetary probes investigating other planets in our solar system.
We are using Global Positioning System to check where we are in the world.
We use satellite communications to talk, connect to the internet and send other information.
We use satellite sensing equipment to view our world like cloud patterns, deforestation, and other environmental systems.
There are many other things that I may have missed but space environment is the next of many more frontier for expansion of our knowledge.
We may gone beyond the space race but space age is here to stay.
American Space Age Reaches Fifty Years
But in Soviet Russia, Space Age Reaches 51 Years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
There you are, staring at me again.
Let's face it folks: going to the moon in the 1960s was more about politics than it was about science. Had to get one over the commies. Now that the political motive is no longer there it is very hard to justify spending up on a 1960s scale space effort.
No wonder NASA still has a shuttle fleet that is 25 years old - or half as old as the whole US space effort.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Drat, foiled again! Savour your victory while you can, because next year will be different!
December 14, 1972 is the anniversary I pay the most attention to. I sincerely hope we go back.
"going to the moon in the 1960s was more about politics than it was about science"
Right, but to be precise it was a political chess move that cornered the Soviets into a position where they didn't have any easy responses. That's why Kennedy wanted something that was "hard" to do. At the time, Mars would have been impossible, and Venus is still impossible (to land on). So the Soviets were basically trapped as far as taking any larger "leap" for mankind. The largest possible leap had already been taken.
There were bigger reasons that just putting one over their nemesis. The 1957 Sputnik launch had sucked off a lot of prestige. Arms sales, alliances and whatnot flow your way when you can prove you have the right stuff. If you appear to fall behind on something like intercontinental ballistics (as it was at the time) people could switch alliances or arms purchase decisions since they'll doubt you can deliver security. Even if leaders didn't like the Soviets, they might still make deals with them. The whole ball of wax could unravel...
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
One of the less well-known aspects of Explorer 1 was how it surprised controllers by changing its axis of spin. It was launched spinning about its theoretically stable long axis like a drill bit, but due to mechanical energy dissipation in its flexing antennas, it ended its first orbit in a flat spin--"like a juggling club" according to this book, which points out that the same would have happened to O'Neill colonies without constant dynamical control.
Yeah, just like this ridiculous article:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/01/0247207
I think we need another Commie Purge...seems that our old friends the Ruskies have infiltrated Slashdot as well, and it looks like the new Cold War is being played out in the comments section of our beloved tech journal!
Or maybe its a historical piece about an important event in history (start US Space program, which you have to admit is important no matter what the nationality), and the phrase "sputnik scare" was taken in a historical context from within the article. Nah, too far fetched. Your theory is much better, Tom Clancy.
Indeed. The date of the last footprints on the Moon.
Nope. The golf player was Alan Shepard on Apollo 14. Apollos 15-17 did a lot more science, they had the Rover to travel further, landing technique was where they could land more interesting places, and on the last mission they finally landed someone (Harrison Schmitt) who was trained as a geologist first, not a test pilot.
-- Alastair
To celebrate this anniversary, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Amateur Radio Club, W6VIO, is offering a commemorative Explorer I QSL card for each contact made through February 4th. See their operating schedule for times and frequencies of operation.
Interesting story from NASAwatch: "The planned launch of 50 Juno I model rockets from Cape Canaveral to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Explorer I launch has now been cancelled by the station's wing commander. Although the CCAFS has no quams about launching Deltas, Atlas and other massive rockets, they go into a complete tither when it comes down to launching a 12 inch long model rocket made of balsa wood and paper weighing just under 2 oz. The intended launching was to be used as a fund raiser for the CCAFS Museum with each of the rockets being armed with the smallest engine they can carry, an A8-3. This engine would have propelled each of these 2 oz. Juno I replicas the a computer calculated altitude and or range of only 239 feet and each is recovered with a 12 inch parachute. The Air Force, however, upon discovery of the planned flights felt that these rockets could pose a hazard to the nearby Delta pads- which are made of concrete and steel and are more than 10 times farther from the model's launch site than the rockets can fly. With that as their reason, the Air Force started the red tape machine. Soon the USAF Jags got involved and wanted a held harmless form signed by everyone near the launch site. Next, a USAF person of non-importance decided to contact NASA and tell them that the rockets would be firing from the actual Explorer I launch site, which was on their property. Now enters the NASA red tape machine, which demanded a full safety review (keep in mind that kids have been flying such rockets since before NASA was even created). With this red tape storm in full swing, the CCAFS wing commander's office had heard enough and scrubbed all 50 launches. Thus, all over America on January 31, 2008 school kids and adults will celebrate the the day that the US Army launched Explorer I into space by launching model rockets. In spite of the winter conditions, the launches will take place in parks and school yards and back yards all over the United States- every place EXCEPT for Cape Canaveral. In 1958, the US Army restored the nation's pride following Sputnik, but it seems that in 2008, the Air Force and NASA cannot even get out of their own red taped way to launch a simple rocket made of balsa wood and paper.