Det är väl 60 år sedan?
Tora.
2017-10-04 10:14 skrev Ahrvid:
(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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