Sputnik Changes World!

I would love to have a collection of these!

In addition to the near 6000 satellites launched since Sputnik, there's over a million bits of space junk orbiting the earth that are "probably frozen bits of nuclear reactor coolant that are leaking from old satellites." Dandy.

the Date: Oct 4, 1957. Americans crowded around crummy little tvs watching the premiere episode of 'Leave it to Beaver' while up in the nether-regions of outer space, intellects vastly superior to ours, regarded our planet with envious eyes, and slowly, but surely, they began to draw their plans against us!In actuality, it was a little bitty satellite with no science payload and the ability to do not much more than make a beeping sound. But it did give us the kick in the pants we needed to get us to the moon first.

I remember it so well - I was ten at the time, and we would listen to Sputnik's beeps on the radio. One could even spot it in the night as it moved slowly across the sky. Shortly after that, they sent up Laïka, a sweet mongrel bitch, in Sputnik 2. We could hear her barks on the radio, and after a few days her barking was more like a sorrowful whine. She was left up there to die, and I cried my heart out for her. I will never forget Laïka.