ABSTRACT
Fifty-eight centimetres in diameter. 83.6 kilograms in weight. Sputnik 1. Launched on 5 October 1957. The launch of Sputnik spurred the development of technologies profoundly affecting our life today and changed the course of our culture. Technology was not the reason we went to space; the reason had to do with a larger theme. I started thinking about this in October 2007, 50 years after the launch of Sputnik. What was it all about? In 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts completed the first circumnavigation of the Moon. What was on the Moon that so attracted humanity? We landed in Mare Tranquilitatis on 20 July 1969 and humans stepped on the surface at 04.17.42 pm. We abandoned the Moon just three years later, on 7 December 1972. The last crew: Gene Cernan, Ron Evans and Jack Schmitt.
