THE DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE: “The world changed profoundly sixty years ago today. On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into a low earth orbit, and the space age began. It was a huge propaganda coup for the USSR. Indeed it was nothing but a propaganda coup as Sputnik did no science at all. Its radio merely beeped about once a second, a signal specifically designed to be picked up by any ham radio operator. Still millions went out at night to watch it pass overhead during its brief life. Its radio ran out of battery power after three weeks, and it burned up on January 4th, 1958…But, along with the microprocessor, it created the world in which we now live.”

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