The start of the space age

This week – actually on Thursday – sees an interesting anniversary. Sputnik 1, which was launched by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, was the first artificial satellite to be put into geocentric orbit. This really was the beginning of the space age and this week we commemorate the 50th anniversary of that event.
At the time, I was nine years old and immensely excited by this huge leap of human endeavour. It seemed that every few months we had a new first: the first animal in space, the first man in space, the first woman in space, the first duo in space, the first orbit of the moon, the first landing on the moon. At the time, we were convinced that trips to the moon would become commonplace and that there would be a permanent base there.
However, space exploration seems to excite little interest these days and we hardly notice the latest human excursion into space.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 7:01 am and is filed under Science & technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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