Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age - by Gary

History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race.
Out in front of the fire hall at my Grandparents house in Usk, WA (just north of Spokane). When it got dark enough, it got dark! There were no street lights and most of the houses out there were lit by kerosene lamps so there wasn’t much light coming from them either. You could go outside and you could see the Milky Way! When the Russians sent out sputnik that was the time my mom and dad came out to pick me up from my summer stay after having pneumonia. We stood there in the yard and saw sputnik rotate the earth, I don’t know how long it took to rotate but we went in and went back outside again and saw it again.