SPUTNIK 50: Take us round the World one more time, tovarisch

by | Oct 4, 2007 | Seradata News | 0 comments

So 50 years after Sputnik the British seem to be finally joining the rest of the developed world and funding its own astronaut programme.

It wasn’t the lead story I was expecting for this anniversary but after five decades of speak no astronaut, hear no astronaut and see no astronaut, this is quite a seismic shift for the UK even if other natoins are wondering, “what took you so long?”

It reminds me of a story one of my German university friends told me about the German philosopher who was asked by his students, if it was the end of the world what would you do? The philospher said, “Go to England.” Bewildered his students asked, “why?” The philospher answered, “because everything there happens 100 years later.”

Well its fifty years in this case but you get the idea. You can find my own theories about why there has been this sudden change here.

Anyway, on to more important things, what is out there in the blogosphere on this auspicious day?

The European Space Agency has its own take on Sputnik’s birthday

NASA took has its own Sputnik special

Sadly the English language section of the Russian Federal Space Agency’s website has nothing on Sputnik and neither does the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s English web pages.

In a bizarre twist China has apparently announced that for 800 Yuan tourists can go and watch satellite launches

Hobbyspace.com’s spacetransportnews.com has more excellent links as always

MSNBC reports NASA administrator Michael Griffin’s comments that China will likely beat the US back to the Moon with a manned mission. Such comments don’t instill a huge amount of confidence in NASA’s current efforts or maybe it is a scare tactic to get Congress to give them some more money as the agency’s budget is now stuck back in a continuing resolution with only 2006 funding levels.

And just to make us feel as though we’re back in the good old bad old years of the Cold War MSNBC has another report about some belligerant commenst by a Russian general about orbital weapons.

But then again you could always place your trust in the Force and help this team out with their 6.4m (21ft) long rocket powered model of the X-wing fighter from the Star wars movies.

About Seradata

Seradata produces the renowned Seradata database. Trusted by over 100 of the world’s leading Space organisations, Seradata is a fully queryable database used for market analysis, failure/risk assessment, spectrum analysis and space situational awareness (SSA).

For more information go to https://www.seradata.com/product/

Related Articles

Categories

Archives

Tags

nasaspacexecoreviewsissesaArianespacevideochinaFalcon 9v1.2FT Block 525virgin galacticULAfalcon 9evaRoscosmosspacewalkDGAaviation weekBlue OriginInternational Space StationaresIGTsoyuzRocket LabBeidouawardsStarlinkAirbus DSspaceboeingSatellite broadcastingrussiaOneWebmoonISROCargo Return VehiclemarsblogresearchspaceshiptwoorionjaxamarsimpactdelayhyperbolaEutelsatdemocratrocketlunarhypertextobamagoogle lunar prizelaunchVegathales alenia spaceSESconstellationtourismbarack obamafiguresnorthspaceflightIntelsatnode 2fundedRaymond Lygo2009Lockheed MartinExpress MD-2Elon MuskAtlas Vromess2dassault aviationsstlaviationLucy2008wk2ukradiosuborbitaltestmissiledocking portexplorationAriane 5 ECAVirgin OrbitinternetSLSLong March 2D/2ElectronNorthrop GrummanChina Manned Space Engineeringsts-122Ariane 5missile defensenewspapercotsgalileospace tourismflight2010Long March 4CspaceportExpress AMU 1buildspace stationaltairsoyuz 2-1aProton Minternational astronautical congressshuttlespace shuttleAriane 6scaled compositesIntelsat 23European Space AgencyLauncherOneCosmoshanleybudgetrulesnew yorkatvVietnamshenzhouLong March 2CcongressMojaveboldennew shepardInmarsatOrbital ATKcnesiaclunar landerGuiana Space CenterApollolawsUS Air ForceSpace Systems/LoralUK Space AgencyLong March 4BKuaizhou 1AkscprotonILSdarpaTalulah RileyVega CElectron KSFalcon 9v1.2 Block 5North KoreaeuSkylonAstriumlanderbaseusaastronautdragonpicturefiveeventTelesatSSLAprilSNC50thinterviewSea LaunchLong MarchfalconWednesdaycustomerlinkatlantissuccessor

Stay Informed with Seradata

Stay informed on the latest news, insights, and more from Seradata by signing up for our newsletter.