This little dingbat scared the Hell out of many of us then ...
from citizenship typepad.com
Nothing but a polished metal sphere of 585 mm (23 inches) diameter with a mass of 83.6 kilograms (184 lb) and carrying only a radio transmitter, it definitely got our attention.
THEY got there FIRST! Oh, Man!!!
You see, those were the thrilling days of yesteryear when the Soviet Union was ruled by Nikita "We will bury you" Khrushchev who, just the year before, had sent columns of tanks into Hungary to crush a rebellion there (just his way of stating "THAT is a NO-NO!").
The days of "Duck and cover" drills in public schools (not at all insane; if a nuke hit several miles away instead of on top of you, that could make the difference between surviving versus being shredded by glass blown in by the shock wave if all you did was just stand there and gawk at the explosion. Nukes are powerful, but not infinitely powerful. They can be survived, and have been. See reports of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for hard evidence. (Although, in an essay on civil defense, Robert A. Heinlein advocated situational awareness (paying attention to what's going on in the world) and summed up surviving the bomb in seven words: "Don't BE there, when it goes off!" ))
That innocent looking thing was placed into orbit by ...
from on6wj-sputnik.blogspot.com
... the R-7 launcher (for a long time referred to as T-3), which evolved from an ICBM whose primary purpose was to transport a thermonuclear bomb from Point A (somewhere in the Soviet Union) to Point B (somewhere in the USA).
The local newspapers ...
San Antonio Light, 05 Oct 1957 - from newspaperarchive.com
... published times of when to see it in the morning or evening, when it would be brightly lit by the sun.
To read or hear about the Soviets (listening to the radio when they were stomping on the rebellion in Hungary was heart-wrenching) while they were on the other side of the world was bad enough, but a bit abstract.
To walk out into your back yard and actually see this bright little silver dot in the sky slowly moving overhead, and realizing there they are; well, that's a whole 'nother story.
(Originally published 1239 CST, 03 OCT 2012)
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3 comments:
Saved as a favorite, I like your blog!
Hello, just wanted to say, I enjoyed this post.
It was inspiring. Keep on posting!
I'm FINE with THAT! ;-)
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