Subdeacon Joe Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 Sputnik 1 https://history.nasa.gov/sputnik.html 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trailrider #896 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 I was 15 years old and had just come home from my boarding prep school, when my grandmother called me on the phone to tell me that the Russians had launched an earth satellite! I had long been interested in space and missiles. My first thought was that if they could do that, they had ICBM's! It later turned out that wasn't correct. They had the launch capability, but hadn't solved the reentry problem yet. Russian "Chief Designer" Korelev needed more time and funds, so he persuaded Nikita Khrushev to allow him to launch Sputnik I to scare the "goose grief" out of America....which it did. Not only did Wernher von Braun get the go ahead to launch Explorer I the following January, but America's science and engineering education get a big boost. My high school got the physics course from the Physical Science Study Committee at MIT...delivered weekly to our instructor in the form of mimeographed sheets! Been quite an adventure on all fronts since then! If only I was fifty years younger, I'd be down in Texas beating on Elon's door! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 ....... well, I was about 4 months old and more interested in ....... lunch ...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rye Miles #13621 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 I was 10 years old and I heard it on the news and I thought Russia was going to bomb us from space! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted October 4, 2021 Author Share Posted October 4, 2021 I was 8 days old. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-BAR #18287 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 Our 7th grade science teacher, Mr. Schecter, turned the radio on and we listened to the satellite beeping. It was just one more thing be scared of, down the list from my Dad, nuclear war, girls, hispanic gang kids, and Miss Rogers the social studies teacher. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 I signed up for a free newsletter from Willy Ley. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forty Rod SASS 3935 Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 Remember it well. Ninth grade science teacher got a radio hook up and we listened to it. That night he set up some telescopes on the football field where thee were no lights at all and a dozen or so of us went to watch it. My 10x binoculars worked just as well once I figured how to use them without wiggling. I also remember some people were scared to death that the USSR was going to be in our back yards before long. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Harley, #14153 Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 My parents were still four years from finding each other and getting married. (Couldn’t resist it!) 1 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted October 5, 2021 Author Share Posted October 5, 2021 3 minutes ago, Charlie Harley, #14153 said: My parents were still four years from finding each other and getting married. (Couldn’t resist it!) Durned uppity whippersnapper! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 I was 9. It was exciting. Certainly didn't make us afraid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watab kid Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 i remember it but the US advances always left a bigger impression Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texas Lizard Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 6 hours ago, Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062 said: ....... well, I was about 4 months old and more interested in ....... lunch ...... You should be ...They came in pairs... Texas Lizard 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hashknife Cowboy Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 I was 3 weeks old......don't remember much. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 I was 2 at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grass Range Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Basic training Ft Ord, CA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062 Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 16 hours ago, Texas Lizard said: You should be ...They came in pairs... Texas Lizard ......the fascination started early ..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trailrider #896 Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 21 hours ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said: Remember it well. Ninth grade science teacher got a radio hook up and we listened to it. That night he set up some telescopes on the football field where thee were no lights at all and a dozen or so of us went to watch it. My 10x binoculars worked just as well once I figured how to use them without wiggling. I also remember some people were scared to death that the USSR was going to be in our back yards before long. Sputniks I and II were actually too small to see even with binoculars. I remember watching what I thought was Sputnik blinking on and off as it went over. What it actually was, was the booster trailing it and tumbling over and over. What I really remember was four years later, when I was hanging around the Holiday Inn's pool at Coca Beach one night when Gherman Titov flew over. There were a bunch of engineers from NASA, McDonnell-Douglas, et al, (I was working as a summer hire for the Navy's Polaris SLBM program, at the time.) Yuri Gagarin had flow in April, and only Alan Shepard had flow on his sub-orbital flight. And here was the second Russian in orbit! You never saw such an angry bunch of guys that night! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texas Lizard Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 44 minutes ago, Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062 said: ......the fascination started early ..... Bet it is still there today... Texas Lizard 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 My Father was working on the development of the weapon system for CF-105 AVRO "ARROW" at RCAF, Station Cold Lake. He came home that night and predicted the end of the Arrow Project, since it was designed solely as an interceptor of "waves' of Soviet bombers coming over the pole. The interim interceptor replacement reverted back to the previously rejected, Starfighter. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waxahachie Kid #17017 L Posted October 7, 2021 Share Posted October 7, 2021 I remember that well. I was 7 or 8. Everyone was surprised that the U.S.S.R. was that advanced. Some were worried that perhaps they had an edge on us, and might decide to attack us with nuclear weapons. It was an embarrassment that they seemed to be further along, in the "space race", than we were. We all thought we had a lot better, and smarter, ex-nazi rocket scientists, than they did. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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