Secrets of 1957 Sputnik launch revealed

“It was called PS-1, for “Prosteishiy Sputnik” — the Simplest Satellite.”

Good move guys. Looking back through time now the Russians probably wish they had shot the developers on the spot and sent their corpse's to Siberia.

And so the Russians learned that if you wake up the sleeping giant it will bankrupt you and cause your form of government to end.

“Surprise!’ The first cut from Leslie Fish’s album “Minus Ten and Counting”:

Remember the fifties, those fat complacent days
When the future seemed a century away?
Then up went Sputnik, gave the world a butt-kick,
And made it clear tomorrow starts today.

Beep beep, boop boop,
hello there! (Gazhupa!)
Sputnik sails giggling through the sky.
(hey! hey! hey!)
Red flags, red faces, jump in the race as
The space age begins with a surprise.
(surprise!)

You generals once thought Von Braun a waste of cash
And that Goddard needed treatment really bad.
Then that global shot put gave you the hot foot
and beep beep, you’re blasted off the pad.

(Chorus)

Done for a threat, propaganda, or prestige,
The point is, the thing was in the sky.
It made generals frown and put money down
And meet that bet or know the reason why.

(Chorus)

That’s how it started, all those years ago,
The push that got us climbing into space.
Cynic beginnings bring forth big winnings,
But look at all we’ve gotten from that race.

(Chorus)

(musical interlude)

Old sputnik wore out and spiraled back to earth
On re-entry it burned up very soon
Hail and goodbye to that upstart of the sky
And in twelve more years a man walked on the moon.

Beep beep, boop boop,
hello there! (Gazhupa!)
Sputnik sails giggling through the sky.
(hey! hey! hey!)
Red flags, red faces, jump in the race as
The space age begins with a surprise.
(surprise!)
And the space age begins with a surprise

Notice the Kruschev’s son is in a position at an Ivy League school?

F.Y.I.

Sergey Khrushchev has been a naturalized American citizen since 1999. So teaching at an American university is not all that amazing. He also teaches at the Naval War College.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Khrushchev

His father Nikita admitted to Nelson Rockefeller when he visited the United States in the fifties that prior to the revolution in Russia he considered emigrating to the United States. I imagine his life would have been much different if he had done so.

What you make of these facts is, of course, up to you.

And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket ...

I was a young teenager when Sputnik was launched by the Russians on October 4, 1957. Hunting with a friend the weekend after the launch we both observed Sputnik orbiting the earth far overhead. It was about 3 or 4PM on a perfectly clear mild fall day in eastern Canada. The late afternoon sun, setting in the west but still well above the horizon, illuminated Sputnik which was orbiting high in the eastern sky, traveling from the SSE to NNW. Sputnik, to the naked eye, resembled a small silver ball bearing ... at least from our vantage point. When my friend and I arrived home later and told others of what we saw ... it was met with skepticism. Later that evening my mother was listening to the news on the radio; a captain of a ship on the St. Lawrence River (approx. 100 miles to our north) had reported sighting Sputnik about the same time we saw it. This convinced skeptics that my friend and I had in fact seen Sputnik ... not an aircraft, or, just making up some fanciful story. Years later, at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum in Washington, I saw a depiction of the Sputnik orbit ... and indeed it did track over eastern Canada.

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