Sputnik+1.

Introduction
The Sputnik 1 started it all. The Soviet Union successfully lauched it in 1958. It caught the world and America's attention off guard, this was a technical achievement. This scared the U.S., Americans thought if they could lauch a satalite, they could launch nuclear weapons to the U.S. The fear was long and grew when the Soviets lauched the Sputnik II. This time it carried a much larger pay-load than I did, this included a dog named Laika. America went on the offensive just after I was launched. NASA was established in July 1958, after the U.S. Department of Defense approved its funding for the project. Soon after work began on the Explorer project. The Explorer was launched and it detected the magnetic radiation belts aroung the earth. This gave the U.S. a heads up on the space race. Americans now had a useful scientific spacecraft. Americans were ready to take on the Soviet Union and make discoveries first. Spuknik 1 was mans first artificial satalite. The pressurized sphere was built for five objectives: See what happens when its put into earths orbit, How dense is our atmosphere, test the orbital tracking device, determine the affects of radio waves, and test the pressurized satalites. The space craft obtained information from the upper layers of the atmosphere. This included the tempature or the atmosphere as well as the inside of the sphere. It was in earths orbit for 92 days before the onboard chemical batteries failed and it completer 140 rotations of the earth. With this launch the space race began.Exact replicas of the Sputnik 1 can be found in museums across the United States and Russia.

Synopsis
Sputnik started it all. It ignited the start if a race between countries who were truely afraid of each other. Some think winning this race was a matter of national security. Others says, it was national pride. America woke up and realized that Russia had muscle. Realizing this, America pushed the issie for students to learn about mathamatics and science. The National Defense set up scholarships for young aspiring scientists, engineers, and mathmaticians. This mass event shifted Americas interests, They wondered if they could explore the oter space of earth and its atmosphere, why not the stars and planets. Until someone explored space, no one knew of the potential dangers and opertunities that were out there. Nobody knew what an astroid was, and a potential mass exstinction could easily before avoided due to out wonderous minds. James Van Allen found that the earth was encircled by high energy particles, this later came to be called solar wind.Finding that this can be hazerdous to satalites and astonaunts. By opening up the world to space launches, it got us curious to see if our body could survive in space. We proved this theory wrong, and astronaunts survived in zero-G gravity. Now that we have these satalites in space, we are now able to talk to people across continents as well as control pods and robots. The world is at your fingeretips with a GPS.

What have we learned
We have not learned s much as we anticipated nor have we learned as much as we hoped. It hasn't been satisfactory but we have taken steps to understanding what surrounds mother earth. It has showm that we should not and cannot undertake the projects that we have been asked to do. We do not have the funds nor do we have the man power. we do not know everything about space. We do know of the many moons each planet could have and the acids and gases in each planets atmosphere. Technical advances need to be made to ensure that we are succesful in launching something into orbit every time we make this attempt. When man is challenged we always succed. Challenging or engaging in another space race could ultimately leave eveyone bankrupt. We do know that masn's imagination wil never leave and the world may or may not find out what is really out there. This event has truely shown that with hard work and extreme dedication that anything can be accomplished. It has shown that the world will never give up on wondering what is out there.