Sputnik 50th anniversary on October 4, 2007
Sputnik 1 (NASA)
(October 4, 2007) Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, a Soviet satellite – an event that ushered in the “space race.”
Sputnik was the first satellite to orbit Earth. It was only about the size of a basketball, but weighed 183 pounds. People everywhere tuned into their radios to hear it send its beeping signal as it orbited Earth for 23 days.
Sputnik was the opening shot that started the space race.
On October 4, 1957, post-World War II complacency in America transformed almost overnight into American competitiveness. The U.S. had been planning a satellite of its own, weighing only 3.5 pounds, but the U.S. did not manage to put its Explorer satellite into orbit until January 31, 1958.
Only a month after Sputnik roared into space on its Soviet R-7 rocket, the Soviets had launched another satellite. Sputnik 2 was larger and carried a dog called Laika.
Sputnik 2 demonstrated again that the Soviets could launch heavy payloads. A tangible fear emerged that the Soviets’ ability to launch satellites translated into the capability to launch ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons to the U.S. Americans worried that the Soviets were ahead of us technologically and might soon put a human in space.
The launch of Sputnik 1 led directly to the creation of NASA, a year later, October 1, 1958. That summer, Congress had passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act (the “Space Act”), which created NASA from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and other government agencies.
On October 4, 1959 – exactly two years after the first Sputnik launch – the Soviets accomplished another amazing feat. They sent the first spacecraft around the moon. The Luna 3 spacecraft obtained images of the moon’s far side, which had never before been glimpsed by human eyes.
On April 12, 1961 – four years after the first Sputnik launch – a Soviet cosmonaut named Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) became the first human in space. He made one full orbit of the Earth in a craft dubbed Vostok I by the Soviets. His flight lasted only 1 hour and 48 minutes, but as the first man in space, he became an international hero.
By the time he landed, Gagarin had traveled nearly 40,000 kilometers. Compare this to the 483 kilometers traveled by American astronaut Alan Shepard, Jr. in a 15-minute flight in the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule. The date was May 5, 1961.
According to NASA’s History of Astronautics, “Gagarin had had about 89 minutes in weightlessness, the mysterious zero gravity condition that had supplanted the sound barrier as the great unknown. Shepard experienced 5 minutes of weightlessness. By any unit of measure, clearly the United States was still behind, especially in the indispensable prerequisite of rocket power. As the new President had said, gloomily: ‘We are behind…the news will be worse before it is better, and it will be some time before we catch up.’ “
After this impressive series of firsts by the Soviets, the United States had no choice other than to increase its commitment to space exploration.
On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress: “Now it is time to take longer strides – time for a great new American enterprise-time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth . . . . I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”
This commitment culminated in Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon, on July 20, 1969.
Sputnik was the beginning of my looking skyward on a daily basis. Not out of fear but out of pure joy and wonder.
Gretchie, yes! I can remember being on a mountaintop when I was younger, looking at the stars and noticing satellites passing over … and thinking that ours is the first time in history when humans ever saw such a sight.
I recall my first trip into space, of course it was a dream,
but what realism.
I wasn’t born. To me and my kids, space travel is cool, but just part of our world.
It’s amazing to me that so many people take modern space travel for granted and forget the herculean effort that brought us where we are today.
Arthur C. Clarke says:
“As William Sims Bainbridge pointed out in his 1976 book, The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study, space travel is a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century. But thanks to the ambition and genius of von Braun and Sergei Korolev, and their influence upon individuals as disparate as Kennedy and Khrushchev, the Moon—like the South Pole—was reached half a century ahead of time.”
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5584
It is amazing how the mind and handiwork of man has added to the lights of the heavens in such a short period. I was born in 1959 so I didn’t see Sputnik. I had a picture of Laika the dog though, and remember seeing some of the Apollo flights, when the whole town would go outside and watch the craft fly over. I saw the first Shuttle fly over in 1981, and have watched countless times as the ISS and various other man-made craft have crossed the skies. The Internet has given me vast information and has allowed me to view the first private space flight and to dream of one day being able to buy a seat on a trip to space. Could someone one hundred years ago have also had a similar dream regarding an aeroplane flight? Now there are robots on Mars that have far outlasted their predicted life, and spacecraft that have been flying for 30 years non stop, still sending signals from 10 billion miles away which take 28 hours!! to reach the earth. In my 48 years I have seen an incredible array of celestial wonders, and will probably see a great deal more than that in less than half that time.
When Sputnik was launched, I was only 6, and frankly I do not remember seeing it. I can’t imagine that it was all that bright, so anyone who did see it can boast of quite an accomplishment. A few years after Sputnik, the U.S. orbitted a series of large aluminized balloons called ECHO, which were quite easy to see. I certainly do remember that. I was also priviledged, years later, to meet several of the original American astronauts, including moon landers Alan Bean and Alan Shepherd, and to be present at the very first launch of the Space Shuttle. Since then, viewing various satellites and the Space Shuttle and ISS has become almost routine. (Shame!) It is not just amazing, but totally STUNNING how far we have come!
Larry S.
In russian sputnik is pronounced “spootneek.” All that we have done is amazing but it is nothing. Voyager 1 hasnt even escaped the solar system and it hasbeen traveling for over 30 years. The universe is so big that what weve done is not even considered an accomplishment. I read that scientist thought of a way to reach 12% of the speed of light. They said it would take 50 years to reach the closest star by using small explosions. Sounds like a good idea. How come they wont build a rocket like that even though the idea is pretty old?
In summer 1976, I experienced what I think was the biggest event in history: The Russian and American crafts got together and “shook hands” in space, a sight to behold!
From Maine, we could only see two white disks in the sky. But when they reached each other, we screamed with joy.
мир и влюбленность
Я увижу вас в космосе
hello ,can you helpe me explore my system voice,thank you