Don't Forget to Thank the Chief Designer

Former Shuttle astronaut Mike Mullane writes a piece about the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch and how it changed all of our lives:

Tonight, I will sit in my backyard spa and look into the evening twilight and count the passing satellites. In the clear, dry New Mexican sky they're easy to see. Just as the setting sun lingers on the tallest mountain peak, satellites that are hundreds of miles high continue to reflect sunlight long after the Earth beneath them has darkened.

Most evenings I'll observe at least a half-dozen of the little "moons," but it wouldn't be remarkable to count 10 or more. As they streak over, I'll try to guess their function. There's a good chance the ones gliding north and south are military spy satellites. Others that are flashing are almost certainly space junk, periodically throwing a reflected sunbeam my way.

But this particular night, at my very first satellite sighting, I will raise a glass of wine and toast the man that started it all — the Soviet Union's Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. It was a half-century ago this night that the "Chief Designer" (Korolev's name was classified by a paranoid Nikita Khrushchev, so he was known to the world only by that title) put Sputnik I into orbit and started the space race.

Now satellites touch every aspect of our lives. They warn of hurricanes and enemy missile launches. They watch for crop blight and allow us to get credit card approval at the gas pump. They bring hundreds of channels of TV into our homes and connect us to the world through the Internet. The next time your automobile GPS guides you through a city maze to an appointment that closes an important business deal, thank the Chief Designer. It was Korolev's genius that put up a 183-pound ball that beep-beeped its way around the globe every 98 minutes and blazed the way for the constellation of hundreds of satellites that now guard, guide, connect and entertain us. It was also a beep that took America to the moon.

I included links to two excellent books on different aspects of the space program. Mike Mullane's book Riding Rockets details his life story and his days as a Shuttle astonaut (3 missions), and Michael Collins book Carrying the Fire tells his story as he worked his way through the Gemini and Apollo programs and flew the first moon landing mission (Gemini 10 & Apollo 11). I've read both of them recently and they're both page turners for space buffs like me. You can order them by clicking on the box or the link with the book's name.