or at least, the US Space Age. And belated (sorry, The Space Age, please don't get mad at me!)
It was fifty years ago on Janurary 31st, 1958, when Explorer 1 was thrown into space by three Rocket Scientists (pictured here seconds before launch). Explorer 1 basically went up and then came down. Later, following the invention of the Rocket Launcher, similar efforts went higher, sometimes into orbit.
Here's a video:
I think this is very cool. Notice that they had a whole different conception of what a countdown is. Also, they take off at night, presumably to not run into the sky. Also, why is that thing spinning?
(Notice also the invocation of the power of prayer...a very important component of early Rocket Science.)
More like this
When the weather gets nice, a sprog's thoughts turn to rocketry. Photos of the first mission of the bottle-rocket season after the jump.
Estes is the major brand in low power rocketry, with Quest as an alternative. If you launched rockets as a kid, it was probably Estes. They make black powder motors in cardboard cases.
For those of you near Silicon Valley this weekend, Maker Faire is a cornucopia of geek delights and sights.
That Professor Goddard, with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react - to say that would be absurd.
Greg,
I don't know why they launched at night (the launcher might just have been ready then), but the top of it was spinning to stabilize the upper stages which didn't have any sort of active guidance system.
You can read all about it here:
http://sortingoutscience.net/2008/01/31/explorer_1_at_50/