beep….beep….beep
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50 years ago today that noise terrified the West like no other and led to a push that ended with the first man landing on the moon.
NPR had a fascinating story on my way to work that the Soviets had no idea that Sputnik (translates to “satellite”) would be a big deal and that it was only launched because no one paid attention to the fact that they had developed and launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Only knowing the post-Sputnik world it’s hard for me to imagine what it was like hearing the news reports that something had been shot into space and orbited the Earth. The terrifying thought of a nuclear device being launched to space and dropped from there is still something that should terrify us (even if there are smarter ways to detonating such a device now) but it would have been unimaginable on October 3rd and suddenly a reality.
Luckily only good has come of Sputnik so far. It’s amazing that something so small (less than 200 lbs.) led to much of the change that has happened in the fifty years since.