The history of satellites in space
The history of artificial satellites in space begins in 1869 with a story by Edward Everett called The Brick Moon. Picture a smaller version of the Death Star, only made of cobblestones. Now, fast forward to 1945 and Arthur C. Clarke’s seminal article in Wireless World, and you’re almost there. While the U.S. had been thinking of developing satellites since World War II, it wasn’t until 1955 that they really started to take the idea seriously.
While the United States was deliberating, the Soviet Union shocked the world with its launch of Sputnik. The Americans reacted quickly, but not before the launch of Sputnik 2, which even carried a pooch in the place of an astronaut.
Finally, in early 1958, the United States launched a satellite of its own. Unfortunately, no one remembers its name, but it was called Explorer, in case you’re wondering.
Currently, there are hundreds of working satellites in orbit, including the new SwissCube, but thousands more are space junk. Yes, they track some of them, and they’ve destroyed at least two with missiles, but that seems like an awful lot of metal floating around out there. Anyway, the future of satellites is right around the corner.