Russia Blog congratulates all those who are fond of space exploration and science fiction by marking the 50th Anniversary of Sputnik (translates into English as “Satellite”) being launched into orbit. Sputnik was the first man-made object in outer space.
"I am convinced that the Sputnik accomplishment by the Russian people was responsible for the creation of the American space program that I head today," NASA administrator Michael Griffin told space veterans at Russia's Academy of Science in Moscow. "Without Sputnik there would have been no Apollo," said Griffin, referring to the Apollo project, which put a man on the moon in 1969.
Even Hillary Clinton managed to tie Sputnik in to her election campaign by contrasting her position on stem cell research with her Republican opponents. "What America achieved after Sputnik is a symbol of what America can do now as we confront a new global economy, new environmental challenges, and the promise of new discoveries in medicine," Mrs. Clinton said. However, Hillary’s reference to Sputnik isn’t nearly as entertaining as her recent proposal to imitate President Putin's pro-natalist policies on American soil: “I like the idea of giving every baby born in America $5,000.”
Although it would dictate the course of his life, top Russian space scientist Alexander Basilevsky recalled being too busy celebrating his 20th birthday at a science camp in Siberia to be impressed when Sputnik beeped a signal to earth. He saw no practical use for it. "Of course we were drinking some vodka and singing, but when I heard this on the radio, I wasn't interested at all," he said.
Putting the politics between Russia and America, and America's Democrats and Republicans aside, we want to say - happy 50th anniversary, Sputnik!
Sept. 15, 1961: Yuri Gagarin, left, the first human in space, and Sputnik designer Sergei Korolyov in Moscow
Oct. 4: Russian soldiers at attention in front of the newly unveiled monument to Sputnik at Star City, the cosmonaut training center outside Moscow.
Oct. 2: Former spaceflight engineers toast the 50th anniversary of Sputnik at the Davidson Center for Space Exploration in Huntsville, Ala. Left to right: Von Braun team engineer Konrad Dannenburg, author and former NASA engineer Homer Hickam, former Marshall Space Flight Center director Bill Lucas, Von Braun team engineer Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger and Davidson Technologies founder Dr. Julian Davidson.
View more AP photos related to Sputnik at Fox News - Science, and read more about Sputnik at Space.com.
Comments
They should rename Star City -- that's the name of a town outside Morgantown, West Virginia, a dump of a town if ever I saw one. I sure hope the Russian version has more class.
Posted by: Meg | October 4, 2007 12:52 PM
Yuri,
About 6 months ago I had a debate with a friend about the difference between Russian and American space technology. He was yammering on that Russia's Soyuz was basically 50 years old. That the Russians can't design a new system.
My response was that the Soyuz configuration isn't 50 years old, but the Soyuz is current. It was the Soviets back in the mid 1950s that REACHED INTO THE FUTURE and brought reliable, performing space technologies to launch the first Sputnik and to place the first man in space. Today's US space shuttle is the one that uses 1000 year old Chinese rocket technology in solid booster configurations... Korolev was simply able to design a system so advanced that 50 years later it would augment and out last the US space shuttle because of a few pieces of foam and ice.
The Soyuz is a beautiful simple design with over 1700 successful launches that continued to work despite the post Soviet economic contraction that was far worse than the US great depression. The concept of the R-7 rocket (derivative of the SS-6 ICBM) with four strap on boosters that made a center motor operate over two stages was simply brilliant... Both performance and reliability were coupled together to give a system that will probably be reused in future designs. Scientists and engineers know that simple designs dominate even in nature.
So recently we learned from our own NASA director that his gut feeling is that China will probably beat the US back to the moon. And go figure, the Chinese system used much of the Soyuz design.
Regardless, it was a great job and a great surprise with Sputnik. Sergei Korolev gave humanity the hope that someday we will get off this planet. Today with peak oil, 6 billion people, and governments like the US killing children in Iraq, C02 heating up the planet and food stocks swinging from feeding people to feeding the SUV, it all makes me feel like mother Earth is 10 months pregnant and if we don't leave this planet soon, both mother Earth and humanity will poison each other.
Be it software engineering, medicine, or space travel, SIMPLE is ADVANCED...
Luther
Posted by: Luther G. Quick | October 5, 2007 7:22 PM