Earth and the Meaning of Sputnik
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 10.05.07 | 11:14 AM ET
In all the hoopla this week around the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, it was one passage from the Economist that, for my taste, put the legacy of the satellite into perspective. “In the 1950s many people imagined that in the decades to come the new frontier would be beaten back by pioneers bent on interplanetary colonisation. By the end of the millennium there would be a moon base at the very least. Probably, there would be hotels in orbit…As it turned out…[p]eople have hardly travelled anywhere at all…Instead…most of the satellites in orbit round Earth look down, rather than up, and the biggest mental change wrought by spaceflight has been not an appreciation of the vastness of the universe, but rather of the smallness, fragility and unity of Earth.”
Related on World Hum:
* Space Traveler ‘Didn’t Even Visit the Moon, for Christ’s Sake’
* ‘Galactic Suite’ Space Hotel Planned for Earth Orbit
Photo by NASA.