50 Years in Space, Sputnik 50th Anniversary Options

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Sputnik at 50 !

[remcook]

Sputnik's shape is actually quite well chosen - it's very photogenic!

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

And an event in Scotland

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

And another major event in the U.K.:
The Lovell radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank became operational in October 1957 and its very first use was to track the carrier rocket that launched Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite.
The first weekend of October 2007, Jodrell Bank Observatory will present a unique spectacle as the iconic Lovell radio Telescope briefly becomes the largest cinema projection screen in the world!
See www.manchester.ac.uk/jodrellbank. Find out more about other events to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age at www.space50.org.uk.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

IMHO an excellent article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/science/...;pagewanted=all

[Canopus]

And we take (communications/media especially) satellites so for granted today.

Whenever I think of Sputnik, I think of Laura Ingalls Wilder: A pioneer girl born in 1867 who lived to see Sputnik. She went from covered wagons and telegraphs to an artificial satellite.

[belleraphon1]

All..

October 4th is almost here. fifty years was the beep that startled the world... and launched the Space Age.

Go to http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/28/...in3309433.shtml and scroll down to the
"1957 The Space Age Begins" video.... well worth watching for the vintage graphics and the reactions...

I vaguely remember the "back yard" and my standing there with my father on a cold night in october 1957. I was four years old. Sadly I cannot query my father about this for he passed away in 1959.

That beep sounds deep and true even today.

May the 100th find humanity on the Moon and beyond.

Craig

[nprev]

...and may the 1000th find us on the planets of nearby stars.

It's a somber 50th anniversary for me; I'm angry at all that was left undone, neglected, that we all expected. Maybe it's just impatience, though. The important thing is never to turn back, to keep going, to explore and learn, no matter the pace.

With apologies to Stu, here's my rendering:

Fellow Traveler

Four billion years of gravity, overcome
new moon rising
over the new world, and the old
the time has come

It soars, ever falling
over the ancient continents, the eternal oceans of the blue world, warm cradle
of air and water
a made thing, no meteoroid,
beeping
the first emissary of the plains apes of Africa announces to the Universe:
we are here
and we will stay

More will follow
by the dozens
then the hundreds
finallly the millions
but you were the first,
and your name will live forever

[dvandorn]

And we take (communications/media especially) satellites so for granted today.

True -- though I am ancient enough to remember the very first telecasts relayed by comsats. The first one, which I do recall, was bounced off of Echo. I remember several, including some of the coverage of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics (if I'm remembering correctly) which had the video subtitle "LIVE via Early Bird"...

We take them for granted now, but I recall a day when live telecasts from remote portions of the world were a Space-Age Wonder. (Then again, I can recall that the very first "live" coverage of a manned spaceflight splashdown was on Gemini V, and consisted not of video but of telephoto still images relayed in near real-time.)

-the other Doug

[Stu]

I have very mixed emotions about this anniversary, and I suspect others do to. Whilst I'm proud of all that's been achieved, and marvel daily at the wonders we've seen, I can't help feeling - well, cheated and betrayed, too. When I was a kid I naively fell for the "When you grow up you'll... " lines, as I devoured anything to do with space, and firmly believed that by the time I was this age I'd be bouncing across the Moon, or Mars, looking up at Earth, in the company of many, many others, as Mankind spread across space. The closest thing I have to that now is sitting quietly with a Stephen Baxter book, sipping a glass of wine and reading about "The Third Expansion" of Mankind across the galaxy, pushing the Silver Ghosts and Xeelee out of the way, and then I look at my bookcase, at all the books full of pictures of gleaming silver and white domes on the Moon, and snowman-white figures bunny-hopping across the martian deserts in search of life with captions saying "By 1990 there will be a scientific outpost on Mars" and I want to scream at the sky, quite honestly.

And so...


FUTURE LOATHING

I hate children. Not for
the normal reasons – noise,
mugging old ladies and “boisterously”
beating up nuns, but because
they’re young and when older they’ll boldly go
and see all the things I dreamed of seeing
when I sat in school, head in a book,
being promised, faithfully,
that I’d live on the Moon just as soon
as I was old enough to vote.
It was there, written in black and white:
holidays in space would be all the rage;
I’d walk on Mars’ dusty plains,
silently gazing up at Earth shining like
a Christmas tree bauble above Olympus Mons.
Instead I clickaclick my mouse, morosely
pouring over yet more unmanned rover
images of Mars’ barren lands,
trying to understand why Tomorrow’s
World lied to my face, why I’m still here
on Terra, peering up from the bottom
of its gravity well like a prisoner
in a dungeon as Mankind slumbers,
languishing in self-imposed exile
on Earth while the myriad worlds
of Sol’s System sing like sirens,
calling, beckoning, begging
to be enjoyed and explored and adored
in person, not through the unblinking
etched silicon eyes of “plucky” robots
the size of a golf cart.

That’s why, hearing a baby cry,
watching it grow I feel no ga-ga compassion.
I can’t sigh “Aaah” as it yawns
in its crib. Instead I glare at it
with tight, envious eyes, begrudging it
every year of the future that it will see
but will be stolen by Death from me.
“God, you’ll see that base on the Moon”,
I growl in my mind as I watch them
prowling round town in their chav
track suits and caps, talking crap, “not me;
you’ll be there on the day the first person says
“We come to Mars for all Mankind,
To seek and find Life…” Is that fair?
I see them sitting there on the steps of the bank,
sallow-faced, can-draining, shell-suited
hoodie hyenas laughing and sticking a finger
up at a future they don’t deserve to see,
surly street monkeys gibbering away,
night and day, night and day and I want
to scream at the sky “Why?!” Why them
and not me? Why should they see the wonders?
Why did everyone lie to me? Make me believe
that if I worked hard and followed the rules
I’d live in a world of wonder? How cruel
is that? Is this the Cosmos’ idea of a joke?

Looking at those old books now,
tt their lie-lined pages,
corners folded over, creased and faded
I feel rage and, yes, betrayed.
I’ve no hotel room on the Moon;
there’s no Armstrong Museum to roam
around, looking for That Footprint
on the dust-covered ground;
no bubble-domed greenhouse
stands on the ruddy surface of Mars;
no sleek starships slip between the far-
scattered suns; skiers have yet
to cut criss-cross tracks across
Europa’s cracked and cratered ice
because they lied to me.

Over and over.

Over and over again.

© Stuart Atkinson 2007


-------------------------------------------------------

Bit darker than your excellent poem nprev, sorry...

[dvandorn]

That, Stuart, is a masterful expression of... well, of my own mind. For one.

If I don't say I appreciate your gifts often enough, I apologize...

-the other Doug

[nprev]

Bit darker than your excellent poem nprev, sorry...

Not at all, Stu, and thank you...your poem captures my feelings as well.

This is a bitter anniversary for all of us who were children that dreamed of space, who believed in a Werner Von Braun/Willy Ley/Chesley Bonestell future. And, yes, I envy the hell out of the young today who just might live to see it all start...but it may well be their children who make it happen.

It had better start, though, and within the next two or three generations...otherwise I fear that no nation or organization will be able to begin the Great Diaspora for lack of resources...

[nprev]

BTW, interesting to see that the lead story on CBS' Sunday Morning news magazine is the Sputnik 1 anniversary...maybe this week will mark some more widespread reflection.

EDIT: Just watched the story...crap. Retrospective on the US education system impact, little bit of we "won" the space race...missed the point entirely.

We don't win a damn thing until we're a multi-planet, in fact multi-solar system species. Long-term survival (in geological time) is the only standard for success in the Universe...

[Thu]

Here's a music clip about Sputnik that I made from the song "Surprise!" and some vintage footages of the early Space Age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-mZ9pKvCmk

Just a few more days and it's the 50th anniversary of this first satellite. Time flies fast but nobody can forget Sputnik.

Surprise!
by Leslie Fish

Remember the fifties, those fat complacent days
When the future seemed a century away?
Then up went Sputnik, gave the world a butt-kick,
And made it clear tomorrow starts today.

Beep beep beep beep...Hello there!
Sputnik sails giggling through the skies.
Red flags, red faces, jump into the race
As the space age begins with a surprise. (well duh!)

You generals once thought Von Braun a waste of cash,
And Goddard needed treatment really bad.
Then that global shot put gave you the hotfoot
And -- beep beep -- you're blasted off the pad.

Done for a threat, propaganda or prestige --
The point is, the thing was in the sky.
It made the generals frown and put their money down,
And meet that bet or know the reason why.

That's how it started, all those years ago,
The push that got us climbing into space.
Cynic beginnings, greed for big winnings.
But look at all we've gotten from that race!

Sputnik wore out, and spiraled back to Earth;
On re-entry it burned up very soon.
Hail and goodbye to that goose in the sky --
And in twelve more years a man walked on the Moon!

[belleraphon1]

Stu and nprev...

I also feel betrayed. All those dreams of a future that was going to be so different. Instead, we are still stuck to Terra.

But my children and grandchildren are no more assured that future amongst the stars anymore than we were. We know more now, but that does not make an expansion to the stars a sure thing.

Unless humankind gets a lot wiser faster, I fear a Malthusian future awaits my grandkids. And instead of placing their footprints in the red sands of Mars, they may just be tracking thru the barren terrestrial sands of a global dust bowl.

So much is JUST within our grasp.... a brighter future, with unending horizons.... unending surprises.... HOPE.

I sincerely hope the 1000th aniversary sees us toasting our narrow escape into the wide open spaces above.

For now I will honor that "beep, beep, beep, beep" that, as one commentator put it, announced the divide in history between the old world paradigm and the space age.

Craig