OBSERVATIONS FROM SCOTLAND                            04 Osctober 2007                                GM1SXX

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I.  The world's first artificial satellite was rather small, about the size of a basketball, weighed only 183 pounds. It took took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth   That single launch, the first man-made satellite, changed the face of politics and engaged the world  in new political, military, technological, and scientific pursuits.  The launch of Sputnik 1  marked the start of the space age and the race between the USA and Russia in spaceflight.  You can still see in old newspaper archives of that era, the shock that ensued in the West with the launch of Sputnik 1.

 In 1952, a year before I was born, the International Council of Scientific Unions decided to establish July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958, as the International Geophysical Year because the scientists knew that the solar activity would be at a high and therefore a good time to conduct experiments . In October 1954, the council suggested that artificial Earth satellites should be launched during the International Geophysical Year to map the Earth's surface. 

In July '55, the US made plans to launch an Earth-orbiting satellite for the IGY and proposals were sought  from various US  government agencies to undertake development of suitable craft.    In September 1955, the Vanguard proposal was chosen by the US in support of the   IGY.   Sputnik 1 changed all that.  It was considerably larger than its US counterpart and of course if the Russians could place a satellite in Earth orbit, it would therefore be vulnerable to weapons carried by the same  rockets.  As if that was not enough to worry about, the Soviets launched Sputnik 2 on  November 3. It carried a much heavier payload  including the dog Laika.

The race escalated and on On January 31, 1958, the US successfully launched Explorer small Vanguard launch vehicle.  Explorer was small but it's scientific payload led to the discovery of the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, later named after  investigator James Van Allen. The Vanguard rocket would go on to launch several other satellites.

Sputnik led directly to the creation of NASA in the USA.   The rest as they say... is history. That was 50 years ago when I was three years old. I missed almost all the fun... typical!  As a very small child I remember my dad telling me about Sputnik1 and 2 and the dog Laika.  That's about as far back as I can remember. Not surprising then that satellites, radio and spaceflight became enduring 'causes' for me.

I well remember the 40th anniversary of Sputnik 1 because I did manage to see the sub-scale replica built by radio-amateurs that was hand-launched from the Russian Space Station MIR.   Spoutnik was launched by hand on the 4th of November 1997 by Russian cosmonauts from the MIR station, if you like, the first "high school" satellite.   An interesting idea and a nice way to remember Sputnik1.

I've always had an avid interest in satellites, radio and spaceflight and I've been lucky enough to meet a few of the participants.   I'm very lucky to have lived in such exciting times. At the University of Surrey's AMSAT Colloquium, I got to talk with NASA astronaut Ron Parise who very kindly signed a couple of T shirts for me.  One is safely at home while LA2QAA has the other one.   Ron described in some detail what it was like to fly in the rear seats of the US Space Shuttle and also an interesting story about the sort of problems that astronauts have in getting personal insurance.  It was rather amusing in a serious sort of way.

Sputnik was of course made possible through the work of the 'chief designer' Sergei Pavlovich  Korolev', the Russian equivalent of America's Werner Von Braun. SP as he was known to his friends was hidden from the world until after his death in a botched surgical procedure. His was a life of misery and triumph but both he and Werner Von Braun were aware of a better use for rockets than threatening other countries..... mannned spaceflight . After all, if you could  get an item weighing several tons into orbit, you could carry a human being with a suitable life-support and recovery system. This was a bit down the road, but both men were well aware of the possibilities.

Satellites are a fact of life now and with the possible exception of radio-amateurs and their small comsats, satellites are pretty much an ordinary thing that we take for granted.  I don't see them that way. In fact the only moving things I think of as 'ordinary' are trains, buses and my old bicycle. Aeroplanes, satellites and spaceflight can never really be ordinary things to ground-based humans. Not being attached to Terra-Firma makes them so, or as my friend Bill, GM0LEG likes to say... 'the more firma, the less terra'.   I do quite often wonder what will become of all those broken satellites and the detritus of the space race that are in orbit. Only a tiny percentage of what's 'up there' is working space hardware. The remainder is junk and it's increasing in quantity.  Space_Junk  Manned spaceflight in certain orbits could effectively become very difficult or impossible in future.  It's not an issue with geostationary orbits and the GEO operators now generally place their old orbiting junk into 'graveyard' orbits where no useful craft are likely to be damaged by them. Low Earth orbit is a very different place with loads of junk orbiting at certain heights.  But I digress..... happy 50th Sputnik!

73 AL.
GM1SXX