Edward Willett

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Happy belated Sputnik Day!

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the launch of the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log has a long post packed with links about the possibilities for the next 50 years in space.

Posted by Edward Willett at 15:40, October 5th, 2007 under Blog | Comment now »

Sputnik

  This Saturday marks the 40 anniversary of one of the most pivotal events in 20th century science:  the launch by the late Soviet Union of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. Nowadays, of course, we take satellites for granted:  we see photographs taken by satellites every evening on the news, we watch television signals transmitted via satellite from halfway around the world, we send our own voices into orbit and back down again when we make long-distance phone calls.  Nowadays about the only time we hear about the launch of a satellite is when something goes wrong with it, but when Sputnik was launched, it was THE news story of the day. It wasn't ...

Posted by Edward Willett at 22:52, September 27th, 1997 under Blog, Columns, Science Columns | Comment now »