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N0KFQ > TODAY 04.10.14 16:05l 55 Lines 2597 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 37350_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 4
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<I0OJJ<N6RME<N0KFQ
Sent: 141004/1400Z 37350@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.60
Oct 4, 1957:
Sputnik launched
The Soviet Union inaugurates the "Space Age" with its launch of
Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. The spacecraft,
named Sputnik after the Russian word for "satellite," was
launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base
in the Kazakh Republic. Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and
weighed 184 pounds and circled Earth once every hour and 36
minutes. Traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, its elliptical orbit
had an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles and a
perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles. Visible with binoculars
before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals
back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio
operators. Those in the United States with access to such
equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping Soviet
spacecraft passed over America several times a day. In January
1958, Sputnik's orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the
spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere.
Officially, Sputnik was launched to correspond with the
International Geophysical Year, a solar period that the
International Council of Scientific Unions declared would be
ideal for the launching of artificial satellites to study Earth
and the solar system. However, many Americans feared more
sinister uses of the Soviets' new rocket and satellite
technology, which was apparently strides ahead of the U.S. space
effort. Sputnik was some 10 times the size of the first planned
U.S. satellite, which was not scheduled to be launched until the
next year. The U.S. government, military, and scientific
community were caught off guard by the Soviet technological
achievement, and their united efforts to catch up with the
Soviets heralded the beginning of the "space race."
The first U.S. satellite, Explorer, was launched on January 31,
1958. By then, the Soviets had already achieved another
ideological victory when they launched a dog into orbit aboard
Sputnik 2. The Soviet space program went on to achieve a series
of other space firsts in the late 1950s and early 1960s: first
man in space, first woman, first three men, first space walk,
first spacecraft to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon,
first to impact Venus, and first craft to soft-land on the moon.
However, the United States took a giant leap ahead in the space
race in the late '60s with the Apollo lunar-landing program,
which successfully landed two Apollo 11 astronauts on the surface
of the moon in July 1969.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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