[amsat-bb] Celebrating Space

[Laura Denise Halliday <lha@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A while back I casually mentioned that I expected 4 October
and/or 20 July to become holidays in my lifetime. I have
since learned that the former Soviet Union celebrated
12 April (the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight) as
Cosmonautics Day.

A (formerly Russian) colleague of mine and I have decided
to put on a event of some sort here at school next month.

Part of my research has included rooting through the
University's microfilm collection, finding things like
Pravda for 6 October 1957 - while the launch itself
was on 4 October, the big announcement was a couple
of days later.

As has been mentioned in other places, the announcement
omits the exact launch time. It does, however, describe
Sputnik as a 58 cm sphere that weighs 83.6 kilos.

"Pyerviy v mire iskusstvenniy sputnik Zemli...!"

("First in the world artificial satellite of the Earth...!"
for the linguistically challenged)

Laura Halliday VA3LDH   "Que les nuages soient notre
Grid: FN03gs                pied a terre..."
                                   - Hospital/Shafte

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