The USSR launched Sputnik 60 years ago today (October 4). The first satellite to orbit the earth, it truly went where no man had gone before.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

......in 'Moonraker'.....it was 69......

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

I dunno, Aldous Huxley came pretty close ....
maybe Adolf Hitler too

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The Phorum Wall keeps us safe from illegal characters and words
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of one's own ignorance. -Benjamin Franklin
BOYCOTT YOPLAIT [www.noyoplait.com]
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Not to mention the aliens who built the pyramids.

I have a memory of going outside at night and my dad showing us Sputnik flying over the house, a small bright light high in the heavens. Did that really happen or just a made-up memory from somewhere?

I would guess it happened. Not sure as to its size, but I believe it was highly reflective. And at just the right hours of the night (for a certain period after sunset and before sunrise) I believe satellites are visible if they're flying over your part of the Earth. In fact, almost any clear night, during these periods, if you just stare at the sky for awhile, you'll see satellites crossing (distinguishable from aircraft due to the lack of blinking navigation lights).

I'm sure that it would have been visible, especially if you had dark skies.

Iridium flares can be insane with the light reflecting off of the solar panels.

On Saturday, there will be magnitude -7.9. flare in my area.

To put this in perspective, Venus has a max magnitude of -4.6, so the satellite is about 21 times brighter than Venus...


[www.heavens-above.com]

We lived in outer suburbia in those days, so could see stars at night. I remember watching it move rather quickly. Don't know how my dad knew the time to go out and look, though I suppose it had been on the news or something. A cool memory.

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ka jowct
Not to mention the aliens who built the pyramids.

…for grain storage.

Did Alice Kramden ever make it "to the moon, Alice; to the moon"!

Our greatest success came only twelve years after Sputnik. Unfortunately, not a whole lot to show for the 48 years after that (with the possible exception of the Apollo 13 mission).

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It is what it is.

.....'mooning' is still a popular sport.....

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

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N-OS X-tasy!
Our greatest success came only twelve years after Sputnik. Unfortunately, not a whole lot to show for the 48 years after that (with the possible exception of the Apollo 13 mission).

Nonsense.

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Uncle Wig

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N-OS X-tasy!
Our greatest success came only twelve years after Sputnik. Unfortunately, not a whole lot to show for the 48 years after that (with the possible exception of the Apollo 13 mission).

Nonsense.

To be clear, I was referring to manned space travel. What we've done with interplanetary probes is amazing.

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It is what it is.

While emotions push me into wishing there had been more manned missions, but it's hard to argue against the economic issues involved. There simply doesn't seem to be any way to make money.

Supporting pure science on Earth in a laboratory is expensive enough; moving it to manned space missions seems unlikely to me.