AS we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch, which marked the dawn of the Space Age and the start of the Space Race, it seems fitting that several nations are eyeing a return to the moon.
What’s also interesting is that the US, which sent men to the moon in response to the shock of seeing the USSR take the lead in the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik, is practically conceding that China might beat it back to the moon.
Here’s an excerpt from the Discovery Channel article:
It took years for the United States to recover from the shock of being bested in space by the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik on Oct. 4, 1957, and the flight of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin just 42 months later, but the country recovered in time to clinch the grand prize in the Cold War space race by landing a man on the moon.
This time, the United States may not be so lucky.
“I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are,” NASA administrator Michael Griffin said during a luncheon speech in Washington D.C., last week. “I think when that happens, Americans will not like it, but they will just have to not like it.”
Here are video clips of digitized film footage of the Sputnik launch and the Space Race courtesy of TVNETWORKS.
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:09 pm
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