Sputnik legacy spurs future space exploration

CTV.ca News Staff

The launch of the Sputnik satellite 50 years ago helped to spur a technological revolution, and its legacy will lead to further international collaboration in space exploration, according to a NASA astronaut.

Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, was launched on October 4, 1957 and is widely credited with starting the Space Age.

The launch of the satellite also led to the creation of NASA in 1958. NASA astronaut Andy Thomas said it was a "huge milestone" that led to advanced technological developments.

"It was a huge wake-up call as a sudden realization that the country was getting behind and lagging behind in its technology developments," Thomas told CTV's Canada AM.

"It's what ultimately spurred (the U.S.) through competition to land on the moon and subsequently develop the shuttle and the Space Station that we have today."

The launch led the United States to significantly increase its spending on science education and research to compete with the Soviets. The space race that ensued was fuelled by the frosty relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

But with the thawing of the Cold War era, a collaborative approach to space exploration will be the focus of the future, according to Thomas.

"These are fundamentally adventures for humankind," Thomas said. "They're not adventures that any one nation has a lock on. They belong to all of mankind so it's only fitting I think that many countries should participate in the further exploration of space and that's what we see happening today."

Future space missions include a return to the moon by the year 2020 and there is a possibility that America will work with Russian on some lunar projects. While NASA has already completed a successful and famous lunar landing in the past, the plans for the 2020 deadline are more extensive. NASA plans to build an outpost on the surface of the moon and to send crews to live there for extended periods of time.

But China may actually reach the moon before that date. China is eager to make a lunar landing and has completed two successful manned spaceflights.

"I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are,'' NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a lecture in Washington two weeks ago, according to The Associated Press.

"I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it.''

Meanwhile NASA is developing a vehicle called Aries 5 which will allow the transportation of crews and equipment between the Earth and the moon for the next lunar mission.

"It's really going to be a terrific undertaking," Thomas said. "It will be enormously exciting."

NASA is also looking forward to traveling to Mars in the future. Thomas does not think a mission will land on the Red Planet before the late 2030s but said that it could reveal some information about the origin of the solar system and the origins of life.

"There's the very intriguing possibility that we might even find remnants of ancient life on Mars," Thomas said. "So I think those kinds of questions more than adequately justify the expense and the cost of making that daunting journey."