Telly
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,395
It was 50 years ago today,
that Nikita Krushchev taught the world to play,
the Orbiting Sputnik Space Club Band!
We went out to try to see it in the night sky, never did see it. Others saw it, but now I find out 50 years later that the Russians had yet another laugh...Sputnik at 2 feet in diameter was too small to be seen by the unaided eye. What people were actually "seeing" was the second stage of the booster, which was a lot bigger! They never let on.
Man, that was a time. Those dirty Rooshkies had put something into "orbit", and it sent out a signal. Then they put a dog into orbit, and then the first man in space! What an accomplishment. What a shock, one after the other.
I remember people trying to get hold of this "orbit" idea. "But what keeps it going around and around without a motor?"
As a very young kid, this was very exciting. Whenever possible, I then started watching or looking at anything dealing with rockets and space. So much of the stuff a kid could get his hands on back then was written by people earlier in the 1950's, it was all "artist's conception" garbage. And the Russians made it all obsolete with science and fact.
Sputnik, though you never knew it, you launched a lot of kids into a wonderful world of science. Thanks for the beeps. Happy 50th!
Telly
that Nikita Krushchev taught the world to play,
the Orbiting Sputnik Space Club Band!
We went out to try to see it in the night sky, never did see it. Others saw it, but now I find out 50 years later that the Russians had yet another laugh...Sputnik at 2 feet in diameter was too small to be seen by the unaided eye. What people were actually "seeing" was the second stage of the booster, which was a lot bigger! They never let on.
Man, that was a time. Those dirty Rooshkies had put something into "orbit", and it sent out a signal. Then they put a dog into orbit, and then the first man in space! What an accomplishment. What a shock, one after the other.
I remember people trying to get hold of this "orbit" idea. "But what keeps it going around and around without a motor?"
As a very young kid, this was very exciting. Whenever possible, I then started watching or looking at anything dealing with rockets and space. So much of the stuff a kid could get his hands on back then was written by people earlier in the 1950's, it was all "artist's conception" garbage. And the Russians made it all obsolete with science and fact.
Sputnik, though you never knew it, you launched a lot of kids into a wonderful world of science. Thanks for the beeps. Happy 50th!
Telly