Sputnik

I was waiting for Brie to come home from cruzin on her scooter to Hollywood and for the 45 minutes I waited, I decided to build something for the shop.

The mini Sputnik satallite

My version is about 1/5 sized  - it looks good hanging in the shop

A steel ball and some stainless rods

I put a washer on the back for the access port

and put some neat little clips over the welds on the antennas

There she is orbiting the shop, relaying to the Soviets what I am working on.

Now for the real history -

Oct 4, 1957 - The Soviet Union rocket was launched with the 190 pound beach ball sized satallite named Sputnik 1

98 minutes later Sputnik 1 had made one orbit around the earth

About a month later, to strike even more fear in the world, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2 which carried a Dog named Laika. ( Note - Soviet Scientist used stray dogs from Moskow, it was said that if a stray dog could survive in Moskow it could survive in space.)

The USA launched Explorer about 2 months later to show the Soviets they were in the space race and close behind.