From Sputnik to Spacewalk

We ground-bound evolved hominids can sometimes get a bit blasé about the world we create and invent.  For instance, there are news headlines about today's spacewalk at the ISS being cut short; the Italian astronaut experienced leakage of water in his suit to the amount of about a pint* and had to return inside with the help of his colleague.  Fluid on the loose inside a spacesuit is a serious issue, since it doesn't behave the way it would down on Mama Earth - see Chris Hadfield's videos on Youtube for how freakily water behaves in microgravity.

Why is this in my blog?

Well, pilgrim, before 1957 there was no Space Age.  The first orbital satellite went up only four years before I was born (launched by them pesky Russians, too).  Sputnik whizzed around the world bleeping to all corners.  It looked like a shuttlecock posing for Playboy and was two feet** across.



Sputnik.  Russian for "Traveller".  Oh those jokey Russians.  It did 70 million km.  Of course it travelled!

The ISS, on the other hand, weighs in at 450 tonnes and is 100 times longer than Sputnik.  At a price tag of £150 billion it costs more than Sputnik, too.  Yes! I know it's a lot of money, but this is an international scientific endeavour that is not researching better ways to blow up your fellow man.  It is, for want of a better paradigm, a very Arthur C. Clarke project.

So, next time you read or hear of some hideous unpleasantness involving Hom. Sap***., cock an eye at the skies and recall that we've put an object massing three Jumbo Jets up there, in order to better ourselves.  We are (nearly) all of us in the gutter, but some of us are indeed looking at the stars.



The ISS.  And this picture exists because it was taken from the Space Shuttle.  Double awesome.

*  and **Tee hee.  British Imperial measurements in the 21st Century.  What a techno-saboteur I am.
*** Abbreviation for Homo Sapiens.  That's you and me, buddy.