by Hendrik Leibrandt
Sputnik 1 (Russian for Satellite)
At the time of the "Cold War" and arms race between the USSR (the today's Russia) and the USA between 1957 and 1975, there also had been a remarkable run of a totally other kind - known as the space race.
OK, in fact a surly goal of the program had also been to develop a carrier system for nuclear weapons... but hey, the results were much more remarkable. It must have been super exciting at that time to follow all these technical breakthroughs that finally lead to the first artificial satellite in earth orbit (Sputnik in 1957) and only 4 years later to the first man in space (known as Yuri Gagarin).
So Russia made this race, but America sent the first crew to the moon. This time lent wings to the imagination of humans and even today this is still regarded as maybe the most visionary time in the history of humankind.
It's a shame, I think, that now governments seem to have lost interest in these ambitious (and expensive) projects that don't seem to bring them so much publicity anymore. But many scientists are confident - humanity's future lies behind the stars.
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