Sputnik and space history

As I'm sure many of you know, October 4, 2007 will mark the 50th
anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the first man-made object ever
to leave the atmosphere and successfully orbit the earth. Throughout
the world, events are being planned to celebrate the "Sputnik Year,"
which begins on the anniversary and runs through December 31, 2008.

I'm part of the production team on Sputnik: The Movie, which is set to
come out this year as part of the celebration of Sputnik's 50th
anniversary. The movie, which tells the satellite's story from
America's point of view, resonates with me today even though I'm far
too young to have lived through the age of Sputnik.

The film is based on Paul Dickson's bestselling book Sputnik: The
Shock of the Century, which I love. Longtime PBS journalist Mark
Shields narrates the film with his unique grandfatherly, yet
opinionated, style of storytelling.

Anyway, I wanted to make you all aware of this movie and the
importance it'll have this year. For more information, you can go to
www.sputnikmovie.com, or feel free to contact me with any questions
you have.

A question for all of you: if you were alive when Sputnik was
launched, what do you remember about that day? And if not, what in
your lifetime compares to the magic of mankind's first venture into
outer space?

On 26 Feb 2007 23:16:14 -0800, "slate91"
wrote:

A question for all of you: if you were alive when Sputnik was
launched, what do you remember about that day?

....Cue Henry and Mary!

OM
--
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On 26 Feb 2007 23:16:14 -0800, "slate91"
wrote:

As I'm sure many of you know, October 4, 2007 will mark the 50th
anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the first man-made object ever
to leave the atmosphere and successfully orbit the earth.

Nice try, but Sputnik was faked. It's impossible to leave the
atmosphere. There's nothing past that for a rocket to push
against. Duh....

Dale

OM wrote:
On 26 Feb 2007 23:16:14 -0800, "slate91"
wrote:


A question for all of you: if you were alive when Sputnik was
launched, what do you remember about that day?


...Cue Henry and Mary!


And me.
My memories of that historic day were going poo-poo in my diapers, and
wishing it could have been on Khrushchev's head instead. ;-)
The first space mission I have any detailed memory of was Carpenter's
Mercury flight, as I remember the balloon failing to deploy properly,
and the Navy searching for him after the landing.

Pat

In article ,
OM wrote:
A question for all of you: if you were alive when Sputnik was
launched, what do you remember about that day?

...Cue Henry and Mary!

Maybe Mary. I was alive then, but not yet really paying attention. :-)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

I was a month short of my 13th birthday, and a space nut already.
I'd read the magazines and newspaper articles and seen the
science class posters, and knew space travel was coming.

But when the launch was announced late Friday evening, and
made the radio news, my folks didn't bother me -- I was going to sleep
and they felt I needed my rest. In the morning, I got up and went out
to chores before they remembered to tell me. It wasn't until noon
when I picked up my stack of newspapers (the 'Reporter Dispatch'
out of White Plains), and saw the headline, that I knew the course
of my life was forever changed.

After delivering the papers I walked down to a local convenience
store, bought up all the other newspapers (the serious ones, from
New York City), and then just stood outside leaning against a
fence, bringing up the subject with anybody walking by.

A month later, we heard the news of Sputnik-2 on the radio
Sunday morning. A few days later, driving to White Plains for
a movie as part of my birthday celebration, the radio news
kept reporting rumors that the dog's capsule was headed
back to Earth.

It wasn't the first 'space spectacular' on radio. The previous summer,
as we drove to a lake for vacation, there were repeated radio reports that
an Atlas rocket launch had gone into orbit around the Earth (it had really
exploded) -- and no, I'm not confusing this with the exciting 'Score'
surprise announcement in December 1958.

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:45:21 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:



OM wrote:
On 26 Feb 2007 23:16:14 -0800, "slate91"
wrote:


A question for all of you: if you were alive when Sputnik was
launched, what do you remember about that day?


...Cue Henry and Mary!


And me.
My memories of that historic day were going poo-poo in my diapers, and
wishing it could have been on Khrushchev's head instead. ;-)
The first space mission I have any detailed memory of was Carpenter's
Mercury flight, as I remember the balloon failing to deploy properly,
and the Navy searching for him after the landing.

Pa

One of my earliest childhood memories is the night we looked for
Sputnik. My family drove out into the countryside to my uncles house
to visit and try and see Sputnik through binoculars. They think they
may have spotted it. I also remember that my cousin was building a
cutaway model of a rocket. What I remember more strongly is that my
uncle also had a large jug full of pennies and he said that I could
have it if I could lift it, but of course I could not. I would have
been about two for the first Sputnik, so I suspect that it was one of
the later Sputniks. I have a more vivid memory of watching Alan
Shepard taking his first flight on TV.

Alan

Jim Oberg wrote:
I was a month short of my 13th birthday, and a space nut already.
I'd read the magazines and newspaper articles and seen the
science class posters, and knew space travel was coming.

Now here's a story even _you_ might not know about...Sputnik 1 and its
ties to Russian plasma stealth technology:
http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/plasma/index.htm

"One of the most interesting articles related to the effect of plasma on
the RCS of aircraft was published back in 1963 by the IEEE. The article
is entitled "Radar cross sections of dielectric or plasma coated
conducting spheres and circular cylinders"
http://tinyurl.com/2uhmxy
(IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, September 1963, pp.
558-569). Six year earlier - in 1957 - the Soviets launched the first
artificial satellite. While trying to track the Sputnik it was noticed
that its electromagnetic scattering properties were different from what
was expected for a conductive sphere. This was due to the satellite
traveling inside of a plasma shell.
You know what the Sputnik looked like and it's simple shape ideally
serves as an uncomplicated illustration of plasma's effect on the RCS of
an aircraft. Naturally, an actual aircraft has a far more elaborate
shape and it made of a greater variety of materials, but the basic
effect remain the same. To summarize the article, in the case with the
Sputnik flying through the ionosphere at high velocity and surrounded by
a naturally occurring plasma shell we deal with two separate radar
reflections: the one from the conductive surface of the satellite itself
and the second one from the dielectric plasma shell.
The authors of the research found that a dielectric shell (a plasma
shell) may decrease or increase the echo area of the object. If either
one of the two reflections (from the object itself or from the plasma
shell) is considerably greater, then the other weaker reflection will
not contribute much to the overall effect. The authors also stated that
the EM signal that penetrated the plasma shell and reflected off the
object's surface will drop in intensity while traveling through plasma.
This is self-explanatory.
The most interesting effect is observed when the two reflections are of
the same order of magnitude. In this situation the two components (the
two reflections) will be added as phasors and the resulting field will
determine the overall RCS. When these two components are out of phase
relative to each other cancellation occurs. This means that under such
circumstances the RCS becomes null and the object is completely
invisible to the radar."

Pat

I was 8 years old, inthe 3rd grade and already a budding space geek. I
remember going to school (must have been the following Monday) and the
teacher asked if anyone could define what a "satellite" was. I don't
know if anyone just replied "like Sputnik" or what, but I remember
giving a more or less correct definition of something like a smaller
object that was in orbit around a larger one.

David Takemoto-Weerts
JPL Solar System Ambassador
Davis, CA

Alan Jones wrote:
I also remember that my cousin was building a
cutaway model of a rocket.

Probably this: http://tinyurl.com/39n6t2
....or this:
http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/model...0Restored.html

*
*
What I remember more strongly is that my
uncle also had a large jug full of pennies and he said that I could
have it if I could lift it, but of course I could not. I would have
been about two for the first Sputnik, so I suspect that it was one of
the later Sputniks. I have a more vivid memory of watching Alan
Shepard taking his first flight on TV.


First satellite I remember seeing was one of the Echos.

Pat