Sputnik

Fabio

It is only today that I have realised just how big the launching of the Sputnik series of satellites was for the USSR.

They not only showed that Russia had, at the time, superior technology in their space programme (or least more workable technology) but they also showed that in terms of ICBM usage, Russia was moving ahead and thus this worried the lumbering America.

This then kick started the USA's space programme and missile programme.

However today the achievements of Sputnik 1 and 2 are almost ignored by the general populace at least here in Ireland. Why is this so and if this is so (as I find it to be) then were the launches that historically significant?

Byt he way, which one of the Sputnik's beamed down "The Internationale" to the a Politburo meeting??? I saw a TV clip on a history channel with The Internationale playing in beeps for the whole auditorium to hear...it was quite amazing!

silverharp

Fabio wrote:

However today the achievements of Sputnik 1 and 2 are almost ignored by the general populace at least here in Ireland. Why is this so and if this is so (as I find it to be) then were the launches that historically significant?

In the end of the day the US won the race to the moon and I guess the western media were not going to give them the fame of say the Wright brothers.

I don't understand the Irish angle part of your question though, as onlookers to the revolutions of the 20th Century, Sputnuk was just another event that happened somewhere else. My parents remember watching out for it at the time so it captured the imagination at the time to some extent

Blackjack

Without trying to taking away from the achievement that was at the time, there is probably more advanced computational ability in your mobile phone that there was available at the time to send spudnik into space or man to the moon.

It would seem that as technology advances, we take these things more and more for granted.

At the time Space was very much an undiscovered frontier, and we'd never seen the earth from space. Now you have Google Earth.

Achievements do pale in significance over time. This should not take away from the achievements they were at their time.

Red Hand

silverharp wrote:

In the end of the day the US won the race to the moon and I guess the western media were not going to give them the fame of say the Wright brothers.

Not sure about the "race to the moon" comment. Sure, the Americans were the first to land on the moon, but I do not think that there was ever a "race".

Perhaps some sort of propoganda has placed this in our minds?:eek: Only kidding! But I used to think that too, only to realise that there never was a "race" to the moon.

For instance didn't the Russians send a probe to Mars first before the Americans and photographed it from I don't know how many thousand miles away? If so, would they have won the "race" to Mars?:)

silverharp

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote:

Not sure about the "race to the moon" comment. Sure, the Americans were the first to land on the moon, but I do not think that there was ever a "race".

Perhaps some sort of propoganda has placed this in our minds?:eek: Only kidding! But I used to think that too, only to realise that there never was a "race" to the moon.

Are you saying the Russians didn't have a program to put a man on the moon?

Red Hand

Nope, they sure did. What I am questioning is the term "race to the moon", which suggest that there was some sort of recognised competition to get there.

I mean who decided the rules of this "race"? The UN? What was the prize? To get a peck on the cheek from Dot on Eastenders?:)

silverharp

Point taken but it was certainly the goal of the USA and USSR to get there first, it was as much a political project as a scientific achievement,