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."

Comments

Killer Pebbles

[Shag]

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. :)

... and pointless

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The knowledge obtained by deep space reasearch might be interesting of itself, but that's just infotainment.... pretty thin in terms of actual applicability or importance to people or this planet.

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.

Re:... and pointless

[evanbd]

How is it that Americans have lost their sense of wonder?

Re:... and pointless

[Admiral Ag]

I don't know about that. Going to the moon is probably the outstanding achievement of our species. If you wanted to ask why it was done, there are lots of reasons, the most enduring one being "because it was there".No-one gives a crap about the Cold War now, but the moon continues to fascinate. It's probably the first time there had been a global awareness of our planet as an organic whole and our small place in the universe. There's a reason why enivronmental pamphlets tend to use the "Whole Earth" or "Apollo 8 Sunrise" shots. All in all we make ourselves better people when we do things like exploration, art and science.

It's not as if Apollo was particularly expensive either. Sure, 25 billion dollars (1960s) sounds real expensive, but given there were 200 million Americans at the time, the cost works out to a bit over 10 bucks a year per person over the 10 years of the program. That's probably not much more than a kid's pocket money each to watch arguably the greatest film ever shot (and it was real!!).

It's certainly a lot less than the warmongering sacks of shit spent on 'Nam, which achieved fuck all other than killing millions of people, poisoning vast areas of land, sowing mass social discord and ruining the lives of young men.

I'm convinced that historians will look back on Apollo as the high point of our civilization, before it sank into selfish decadence. When I was a kid, everyone wanted to be an astronaut. Now they want to be a rap star with guns, bling and mansions full of semi-naked hookers. /get off my lawn

Re:... and pointless

[Sanat]

I'm convinced that historians will look back on Apollo as the high point of our civilization

I believe we are only a few (3 to 4) years away from being patriotic and supporting America like it was done in the 50's and 60's. Not that we will be at war, but rather true peace. We will have our heroes back and have a bunch of new ones as well. I predict that some individuals will become heroes who even post here on Slashdot for i have read a lot of very thought provoking messages over the last 10 years.

I visualize peace and cooperation in the world beginning to happen at an amazing rate. Perhaps each country will have their share of heroes too... I would be all for that.

December 14

[evanbd]

December 14, 1972 is the anniversary I pay the most attention to. I sincerely hope we go back.

Re:December 14

[evanbd]

I beg to disagree on all counts.

Firstly, I believe my odds of going are significantly better than the average person's, due to my career choice. Still not good, but way better than average.

Secondly, sending a robot isn't as good as sending a person, even if only for purely sentimental reasons -- which are not without value. And if you say they are, then I ask very simply -- what is wrong with you? Have you no sense of wonder? No drive to see humanity explore?

And thirdly, robots are *not* substitutes for humans when it comes to doing basic science. The MER robots do in a day what a trained geologist could do in a couple minutes. The problem is that we're too modest in what we ask for from our missions. If we started by asking what a trained scientist could do given a week or two, and wrote that up as the mission objectives, you'd rapidly discover that no robot we could imagine building in the near future could complete the mission.

What kind of geek are you? How can you not look at the sky and want to *go* there? If you truly tihnk robots can do anything you want done up there, then I believe you have misplaced your imagination.

Flat spin

[Media Withdrawal]

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.

Re:erm?

[AJWM]

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.

JPL Amateur Radio Commemorative Event

[dtmos]

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.