By DPA
Moscow : The shock in the West was deep when the bleeping from Sputnik 1 50 years ago could be picked up from space by simple radios worldwide.
The first man-made satellite that had been blasted into space from the then Soviet missile complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan marked Oct 4, 1957 as not only the beginning of the Space Age, but also the starting shot in the race between the US and the USSR for space – and the Soviets were ahead by a nose.
The US also feared that Moscow could use its versatile missiles to launch nuclear weapons at it.
Now, after a long dry spell, Russia is once again aiming to head back into space with its own Moon station and Mars mission.
Sputnik, 58 cm in diameter, and weighing around 84 kg, ushered in a new era of scientific and technical developments such as satellite communications. Then Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev recognised the propaganda value of space, with the Russians launching Sputnik-2 on Nov 3, 1957 to mark the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution. The satellite weighed 500 kg and was also “manned” by a dog named Laila.
Fifty years after her death as the first living being in space, there is now a memorial in her honour.
In early 1958, the US finally managed to put a satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit. But Krushchev was able to scoff at what he called Washington’s “grapefruit” since Explorer 1 was a mere 13.7 kg and 16.2 cm in diameter.
Just in time for the celebration, Russia’s space industry is demonstrating itself confident after the chaos and under-financing of the 1990s. In 20 years, they are planning a station on the Moon and in 30 years a manned flight to Mars, the head the Russian space agency Roskosmos, Anatoly Perminov, says.
His programme also sees the building of a new space platform in the Far East and a purely Russian space station.
“That will be something completely different from the ISS (International Space Station),” Perminov says. A new transport system and space shuttle are also in the offing, he says.
Russia wants to couple this with old successes. By 2011, the Russian satellite navigation system Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) is to overtake the US Global Positioning System (GPS) system, the Kremlin daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta wrote, citing Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.
According to the report, the system is no less important than the possession of nuclear weapons or energy resources. “One has only put on a full head of steam,” Ivanov urged his researchers.
In response, scientists are concerned with the increasing volume of so-called space junk in the earth’s orbit.
According to Yuri Zaitsev of the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, space flight could even become “impossible in a while,” because too many satellites and projectiles are in the flight paths.
Millions of individual parts, the remains of carrier rockets, exploded space probes and everyday waste from astronauts and cosmonauts are now floating around the earth.
Collisions and injuries of personnel are possible as many of these space particles are moving faster than gunshots, Zaitsev says.
Fifty years after the start of Sputnik, hundreds of satellites are revolving round the earth at heights of between 80 km and 36,000 km.
They are delivering meteorological data on weather forecasting and register changes on earth, from volcanic eruptions to hurricanes and the destruction of the rain forests.
And they are measuring the melting of the polar ice caps due to climate change.
The scientific haul of the first Sputnik mission led by Sergei Korolyov was slight in comparison.
The body of that craft with three antennae delivered data over the thickness of the atmosphere and temperature to a station on the ground.
With a speed in space of 8,000 metres per second, the satellite circled the globe at a distance of 939 km until the chemical batteries were used up and the glittering aluminium ball burnt up in the earth’s atmosphere on Jan 4, 1958.