History.com: The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “satellite,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic. Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes.
Traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles. Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators. Those in the United States with access to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times a day. In January 1958, Sputnik’s orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. MORE
“first spacecraft to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon, first to impact Venus”
some spin for describing crash landings, did the writers work for a politician?
they missed their calling.
I actually saw that sucker one night. The local newspaper published a time and approximate location for viewing in our area, and sho’ ’nuff it was there, just like they said it would be. The only “star” that was moving across the sky.
Don’t recall any beeping, though.
😉
@ Vietvet:
Me too. We heard the beeping on a transistor radio.(Remember those?)
They certainly have come a long way. From sputnik to hacking the DNC.
@Stinkfoot II: Was just kidding about the beeping (like I could have heard it from orbit as it passed overhead ; D ). I do recall hearing the sound reproduced over the radio and in the movie theater newsreels (remember those?), but, as the article points out, you had to have special equipment to hear it in real time.
Ah, how many of you know the name of the man who actually discovered it’s launch? I do. I can guaranty you what you were told, and by whom when it happened (long before i was born. Sorry guys) as to how they became aware of it, isn’t really the whole truth. 😉
I’m another one who remembers seeing Sputnik pass overhead late at night since at the time it was the only satellite in the sky. Does that make us old or what?
Thus Soviets had the “honor” of tossing up the first piece of space junk.
Through born at the start of the space age (1957),I remember well the early sixties when my parents and I would sit outside on the lawn after sunset and watch satellites raise up from the horizon and cross the sky like a star that had freed itself from the firmament till it raced to the other horizon and fell from our sight. My father would time them and 90 minutes later we would both try to spot them as they returned.
Growing up in Southern California at this time had the added benefit of hearing mysterious sonic booms and flashing lights in the night sky that seemed to move faster than a plane should be able to go(we now know that Edwards air Base was the cause),but the most beautiful thing in my opinion were the late afternoon or sunset test launches from Vandenberg that failed and with their failure would paint the western heavens in diaphanous swirls of color that stayed illuminated by the sun long after it had set and even sometimes long after twilight had ended.
@Geoff: Yes. Yes, it does.
🙂
@SHakeNbaKe: Huh?
I was in High School. In the 50’s all the “Smart” guys were programed to be EE or Physicist. I was EE bound in 57. There was great panic in America that Ike’s program had “lost.” NOt true; as the next 10 years would prove. Ike was going to send men to Mars in the late 60’s and open an American colony on Mars 7/4/76; full of hundreds of American colonists. JFK wanted welfare and killed the Space program. I had a friend who worked at Douglass on the MOLE. Could not get a decent job after 61 so he killed himself – Mike Martin.
BTW it is 50.2 years after 7/4/76 and we still have no Martian colony! Also no men on Bea Centauri!