(Från en grej jag postade på en utländsk E-postlista. --AE)
It was today 70 years ago that Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, was
launched! A few tidbits about it:
* It shouldn't have been a surprise, because the Russians *did* announce their
intention to launch it in advance. I've seen a small piece about it in a
technology/science magazine myself (I just now can't remember where I saw it,
but it was pre-October). The Americans had of course also announced that they'd
launch a satellite, during this International Geophysical Year.
* Paradoxically, it was US technological superiority that created Sputnik. US A
and H bombs were much better, and smaller and lighter and thus didn't need very
big rockets. The Russian Bombs were clumsy and heavy, and they therefore *had*
to build big rockets. Big enough to launch Sputnik.
* If the Americans had wanted to they could easily have launched a satellite
before Sputnik. Wernher von Braun unsuccessfully lobbied for it. The US
satellite project was delayed by rivalry between the army and the navy.
* The only instruments on board Sputnik was a internal pressure meter, a
thermometer and a radio transmitter. The temperature and pressure info was
encoded in the length of the radio beeps. The beeping radio was of course the
big sensation and a propaganda coup - every radio amateur in the world could
hear the satellite (until the internal battery ran out Oct 26). When the first
US satellite (Explorer 1, Jan 31 1958) was launched it had more instruments.
Its radiation detector was the first to register the van Allen belts. It had
micro meteor detectors. And several thermometers.
* The American public were shocked by Sputnik - the military and scientists
weren't: they knew. It meant the Damn Commies can drop a Bomb on our heads. And
that meant the US politicians *had* to respond. That created the Space Race,
and later the Apollo program. So we can thank our lucky star that the Russians
were first... (Had the Amercans been first = no space race.)
* I knew the Swedish (of Russian background) space journalist Eugen Semitjov
(1923-1987). He told me (and has written about it too) what he did Oct 4 1957:
he got a phone call from the leading newspaper Aftonbladet, which desperately
wanted an illustration of Sputnik for their front page (Eugen was a very
skilled artist too). So he sat there in his studio drawing Sputnik from the
scant info about it that he had. A messenger boy from Aftonbladet waited and
waited in the hall. Eugen guessed absolutely correctly that Sputnik would be a
big silvery ball (but he got its radio antennas slightly wrong). Deadline was
closing in, it but he needed to get the Moon into the drawing. But with no time
left, ha picked an astronomy book from the shelf and cut out a picture of the
moon and glued it on. He made it to the front page.
More about Sputnik here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
--Ahrvid
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