Sputnik - 50 Years Ago Today

Look at that boy's heed! It's like Sputnik!

Sputnik launched Soviets, U.S. into Space Race

Then, 50 years ago today, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1. It
achieved an orbit around the Earth, circling the globe every 96 minutes. The shiny sphere, just under 2 feet in diameter with four antennae, could be seen passing overhead like a moving star at night. Its radio beeps could be heard on ham radios all over the earth. It orbited the earth 1,440 times before burning up in Earth's atmosphere in early 1958.

The world had its first artificial moon. And just like that,
the world changed.

The article is written for The Asbury Park Press by Mike Black, a science teacher from New Jersey, and occasional call-in guest (as Mike The Teacher) on the Ron & Fez Show, who I had the pleasure to meet once. A great guy. Very smart and I always like when he schools listeners who don't know sputnik about Sputnik and all things science, in which our country is sorely lacking behind these days. Too many people are worried about gay marriage, abortion, religion and countless other nonsense that stops any development and advancement of the human race.

As Mike writes...

It remains to be seen what the next 50 years will bring, what the
world will be like in 2057 when the Space Age is a century old. Things seem uncertain at best. The momentum of our triumphs has been slowed by bureaucratic inertia and lack of funding. Will we one day return to the moon? Will humans have a society on Mars? Will we be traveling the stars for real, or again, with just our imaginations?

What about today? Are we a science-literate nation? Are science
and an understanding of technology high priorities in politics, in education and our culture?

Fifty years ago, we were comfortable in the knowledge of our
dominance over other countries, sure that our nation was a scientifically literate one. Space exploration was not seen as a high-priority national pursuit, certainly not something to waste tax dollars over. Sputnik changed all of that and more overnight in 1957. Do we need another wake-up call?

Damn right we need a wake up call. At this point, China will beat us back to the moon. But we shouldn't be racing against each other, we should be working with each other. Just not with those deadly Chinese toys.


Of course, back then, Russia fell by the wayside when it came to reaching the moon. But they had good reason, after all, Aliens forced Americans out from the Moon (Pravada story, have a laugh).

Under A Red Moon

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says he believes China will return to the moon with human explorers before the U.S. accomplishes that goal with its Constellation Program, as the economic competition fueled by spaceflight activities intensifies.




But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute.

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.



Remember when presidential speeches would energize and inspire us?

Me neither.

The last 8 I saw were THE SAME bullshit that is keeping this country lagging behind any reach for our future for our kin and countrymen.

The Warning Signs Were There

That's what someone will say generations from now. Whether that someone will be a Borg like entity inhabting this planet or it will be someone hiding out on an apocalyptic wasteland trying to find his next meal while avoiding machine patrols... remains to be seen.

But, NASA just announced a partnership with the M2Mi Corporation to develop intelligent machines that will be able to "mind meld" with each other, make intelligent choices, and communicate with each other, all without human intervention.

And so it begins...