Episode 12 — Getting to Sputnik
Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Earth’s first artificial satellite — Sputnik 1. Lots of news sites are covering various aspects of this anniversary — mostly dealing with what’s happened in space in the intervening 5 decades, and what we may see in the future. What seems to be getting far less coverage, though, is the twisted path that led to the launch.
Sputnik’s launch didn’t take place in a vacuum (no pun intended), after all — a number of social, political, and technical forces were at play. Tune in this week, and I’ll fill you in on all of the good “deep background” information that’s often lost in the shuffle.
If you’re not subscribed to the podcast, you can listen to the episode via an inline player (Flash required) here:
You can also directly download the episode using this link. For sources, and those who’d just like to follow along, the episode’s show notes are here….
Technorati Tags: history, NASA, space, spacecraft, technology
Sorting Out Science » Blog Archive » Sputnik hyperindex wrote,
[...] little or a lot of information relating to the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. Even I got into the act… Since some of the discussions of Sputnik are in-depth, and others little more than “me [...]
Link | October 4th, 2007 at 12:23
gowen wrote,
This podcast (12) and the previous one (11) are not appearing on the non-itunes rss feed.
Link | October 23rd, 2007 at 11:50
Sam Wise wrote,
Thanks for the bug report! Try it now (do a refresh of the feed in your reader), and let me know how things look…
Link | October 23rd, 2007 at 23:47
gowen wrote,
All working now. Thanks
Link | October 25th, 2007 at 01:38
Sorting Out Science » Blog Archive » Explorer 1 at 50 wrote,
[...] you’ve been listening to SOS podcast episodes (in particular, the podcast episode on Sputnik), you’ve heard of the events that led up to the launch. As a refresher, here’s a quick [...]
Link | February 4th, 2008 at 08:22
Sorting Out Science » Blog Archive » The scientific tourist #5 — our first Explorer wrote,
[...] I — the U.S.’ first successful satellite. As I discussed a bit back in the podcast episode on Sputnik, Explorer I was (at least on paper) a cobbled-together response to the Soviet satellite. But of [...]
Link | February 8th, 2008 at 23:20