Sputnik 1's 50th!

I usually try not to blog twice in one day, but I was just shocked to discover that TODAY is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik I!!!

This is HUGE!

Not only because I've been thinking abut space exploration recently (consider the previous blog, posted just hours ago) but because Sputnik I CHANGED THE WORLD!

It's the first piece of space-junk we ever sent up, for starters! The first time we, humans, made something on the land and stuck it up in our night sky!

But more than that, according to Wikipedia.org, Russia beating us into space caused our government to increase spending on scientific research and education!!!

OUR GOVERNMENT!!!

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND EDUCATION!!! lol

Dude, I just wish there were some current something or other that could get "Dubya" and his crowd excited about scientific research (NON-commercial, that is) and public education!

Actually, I mock President Bush, but NASA's been busy these last few years. So I take back the easy joke at his expense! (I shouldn't be in the habit of making the easy jokes anyway; a writer shouldn't get creatively lazy!)

But Sputnik...

It's pretty cool that it happened to be in October when it launched, too!

Follow me for a second:

October...

Halloween...

Old Horror/Sci-Fi movies...

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD...

...satellite crashes to earth just hours before dead people start walking the earth and devouring the living...

Actually, just follow the Halloween and Horror/Sci-Fi flick connection... Some of the GREATEST Halloween viewing (well, for me, anyway) is that slew of Sci-Fi flicks made in the 1950s/1960s as a reaction to America's fear of outer space and scientific progress!!! INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE BLOB, THE FLY, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES (never seen it, but what a great title considering this topic, right?), the afore mentioned NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and let us not forget PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE!!!

PLUS, 5 seasons of THE TWILIGHT ZONE!!! A show which probably wouldn't have had as much of an audience before October 4, 1957! (Prior to Sputnik, Sci-Fi was considered, in America, to be the strict domain of childhood!)

So I say "YAY, SPUTNIK!!!" :D