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Sixty years ago today; 1/31/58
Sixty years ago today, 1/31/58, the first US spacecraft to orbit the Earth was launched. It was called Explorer 1. The US had to watch in stunned disbelief as the USSR kicked it's ass in space in 1957. The first spacecraft launched, Sputnik 1, launched on October 4, 1957. With a mass of 184 pounds, it was SIGNIFICANTLY… -
Re: Sixty years ago today; 1/31/58
More importantly 1/31/58 was the day I was born B) Thanks for the history lesson. -
Re: Sixty years ago today; 1/31/58
"To further twist the knife in the wound, vis-a-vis pathetic rockets, the US attempted to launch it's first satellite, Vanguard 1, on 12/6/57. The Vanguard rocket rose 4 feet and fell back to Earth where it exploded. US newspapers named it all sorts of things including Flopnik". If I remember correctly, the three I recall… -
Re: Sixty years ago today; 1/31/58
Sputnik was visible as a point of light moving across the sky in 1957 in my hometown of Jamestown, NY. My neighbor, Mrs. Clarke, told us kids about it and showed us how to spot it in the sky. This infuriated my parents because there was an aura of fear associated with the Soviet satellite which was thought to be possibly… -
Re: Sixty years ago today; 1/31/58
Thanks for this interesting post. :) I just finished reading a book about the political relationship between Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. The author speak a fair amount time with the launching of Sputnik and the embarrassment it caused. I remember a book I read circa 1960 that had the following selling printed on… -
Re: Sixty years ago today; 1/31/58
All space related news was very big news until the early 1970s. I remember seeing a photo of the failed launch of the Vanguard on the front page of the Chicago Tribune. -
Re: Sixty years ago today; 1/31/58
This subject jarred a memory of my finding something on a seat on a city bus in the USSR that was a really neat find from early USSR space history: Luna 2 was the first man made object to strike the moon on 14 Sept 1959 and this znaki or pin was created shortly afterwards. It was not unusual to find znaki that had fallen… -
Re: Sixty years ago today; 1/31/58
Thanks for the link.
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