Hi! I’m Space Man Spiff, space explorer extraordinaire! For the next nine months, I’m going to write about some of the most famous and amazing unmanned vehicles ever sent into space!
For my first blog, I’m going to write about Sputnik 1 and 2. Although their technology was pretty lame, they were the first man-made satellite ever, so they do deserve some appreciation.
Sputnik 1 was launched by the Russians on 10/4/1956. It was the VERY FIRST MAN MADE SATELLITE EVER, giving the Russians the lead in the space race. It was a scientific satellite, with its electronics in a spear with a diameter of 23in, and four antennas. It provided scientists with information about the atmosphere, and continued to transmit radio signals until it ran out of battery power on the 26 of October. It fell into the atmosphere on 1/4/1958, after completing 1,440 orbits.
The news spread like wildfire, and just as everybody was getting over the shock, on 11/3/1957 the Russians launched Sputnik 2! But this wasn’t a twin of the tiny Sputnik 1. It was a 13-foot high cone-shaped capsule with a diameter of 6.6 feet at the base. And it even had a passenger! That passenger was Laika the dog, and although she died, she was the very first living thing to be sent into space (that wasn’t a microbe).
Well, that’s it for this month. What the?! Were did those aliens come from? Oh no! It’s the scum beings of Q-13! Bye!
