Mike Teacher
10-04-2007, 08:51 AM
Todays local paper carried a rather large article I wrote on today's 50th anniversary of Sputnik 1 and how the world changed, and the Space Age and Space Race were born.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m110/MizzleT/sput1.jpg
For those who cant read microscopic; the Link to the article is
HERE (http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071004/OPINION/710040396/1030)
and the [Edited] text is below if you're as lazy as me:
Sputnik launched Soviets, U.S. into Space Race
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/4/07
BY MIKE BLACK
Before October 1957, humanity was pinned to the Earth. Our imaginations were the only things that could travel beyond Earth, to the planets and stars. As long as humans have existed, we wondered what was really up there, but until we developed the means to actually put something in space, our imaginations were all we had.
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.
It wasn't noble scientific causes or the spirit of exploration as much as Cold War posturing of missile technology that carried Sputnik into orbit. But it worked, and a Space Age and the Space Race was born.
It is difficult to underestimate how many things were affected by this technological feat. We were enthralled and shocked that such an achievement was made, then shock turned into national concern and more than a bit of fear that it was the Soviet Union, not the United States, that got into orbit first. Overnight, everyone was asking, why them and not us?
The world of 1957 was one with atomic bombs and superpowers. The United States and the Soviet Union were in an arms race that would result in the rapid evolution of high-powered rocketry to deliver atomic warheads to the other side of the globe. The technology both countries were developing to carry weapons also could carry a payload of scientific instruments to study the conditions of Earth's orbit. No one, the Soviets included, had any idea of what a success, what a national triumph, this would be seen as.
The success of the Soviets continued. They were also the first to put a man in space, and in orbit, and we were scrambling to play catch up — in science, in education, in the very way we did things.
Sputnik is so memorable because it did much more than orbit the Earth. It humbled and terrified a country that all but assumed it was years ahead of the Russians. It also shrank the world to an almost terrifying degree. If a country could orbit a satellite, it could orbit an atomic bomb.
The fact the Russians beat us time and again all but forced us to respond with something as audacious as the Apollo Project to land a man on the moon. Some believe that if the United States had been the first to orbit a satellite or put a man in space, the race would have ended then, and we never would have sent people to orbit and land and walk on the moon.
The resulting Space Age literally transformed the planet. Today, scores of artificial satellites orbit the earth. Communications and weather satellites give us voice and data in real time. Hundreds of humans have now been in Earth orbit, 24 men have been to the moon and 12 of them walked on it between 1969 and 1972.
We have sent robotic spacecraft on missions that have resulted in a thorough reconnaissance of the solar system. Two of them, Voyagers 1 and 2, are poised to leave the boundaries of the solar system.
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?
Mike Black, Wall, is a science teacher and writer on science and technology issues
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m110/MizzleT/sput1.jpg
For those who cant read microscopic; the Link to the article is
HERE (http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071004/OPINION/710040396/1030)
and the [Edited] text is below if you're as lazy as me:
Sputnik launched Soviets, U.S. into Space Race
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/4/07
BY MIKE BLACK
Before October 1957, humanity was pinned to the Earth. Our imaginations were the only things that could travel beyond Earth, to the planets and stars. As long as humans have existed, we wondered what was really up there, but until we developed the means to actually put something in space, our imaginations were all we had.
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.
It wasn't noble scientific causes or the spirit of exploration as much as Cold War posturing of missile technology that carried Sputnik into orbit. But it worked, and a Space Age and the Space Race was born.
It is difficult to underestimate how many things were affected by this technological feat. We were enthralled and shocked that such an achievement was made, then shock turned into national concern and more than a bit of fear that it was the Soviet Union, not the United States, that got into orbit first. Overnight, everyone was asking, why them and not us?
The world of 1957 was one with atomic bombs and superpowers. The United States and the Soviet Union were in an arms race that would result in the rapid evolution of high-powered rocketry to deliver atomic warheads to the other side of the globe. The technology both countries were developing to carry weapons also could carry a payload of scientific instruments to study the conditions of Earth's orbit. No one, the Soviets included, had any idea of what a success, what a national triumph, this would be seen as.
The success of the Soviets continued. They were also the first to put a man in space, and in orbit, and we were scrambling to play catch up — in science, in education, in the very way we did things.
Sputnik is so memorable because it did much more than orbit the Earth. It humbled and terrified a country that all but assumed it was years ahead of the Russians. It also shrank the world to an almost terrifying degree. If a country could orbit a satellite, it could orbit an atomic bomb.
The fact the Russians beat us time and again all but forced us to respond with something as audacious as the Apollo Project to land a man on the moon. Some believe that if the United States had been the first to orbit a satellite or put a man in space, the race would have ended then, and we never would have sent people to orbit and land and walk on the moon.
The resulting Space Age literally transformed the planet. Today, scores of artificial satellites orbit the earth. Communications and weather satellites give us voice and data in real time. Hundreds of humans have now been in Earth orbit, 24 men have been to the moon and 12 of them walked on it between 1969 and 1972.
We have sent robotic spacecraft on missions that have resulted in a thorough reconnaissance of the solar system. Two of them, Voyagers 1 and 2, are poised to leave the boundaries of the solar system.
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?
Mike Black, Wall, is a science teacher and writer on science and technology issues