Looking Back

I remember seeing a moving in junior high that showed interviews with elderly people. They talked about the World Wars and Russia and Commies and The Space Race. One of them described just how terrified he was when he thought about Sputnik and how it might have been spying on him.

If only they could have known then what Sputnik would bring to today’s world.

I’ve started taking for granted how satellites have changed the world. I have a cell phone that I feel naked without and I’m using the internet right now. GPS satellites circle the globe and help rescue crews find lost people and give directions to lost people in SUVs. We now have world wide communications.

If I really think about satellites and what they are capable of, it kind of scares me. I fully understand why people were scared of it. Satellites can, and do, act as spies. But I like to focus on the good things that come from this technology. Google Earth was developed using pictures taken from satellites and the Hubble telescope takes awesome pictures of space.

So, the reason for this post is to salute Sputnik, near the 50th anniversary of its first trip and the beginning of the Space Race. We owe so much that we have to it.

Thanks Yahoo News for the content and the picure.