Re: New Sputnik Documentary

Philip <me@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:
Barbara N <barbarajfn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Well, not so much about that day, except that we heard that it was launched and
went outside to see if we could see it orbit overhead. My recollection is that
we did [I was in high school] and that it looked like a speck of light.

If you saw anything - it was the discarded 3rd (IIRC) stage of the
booster. Sputnik I itself was too small to be visible to the naked
eye.

So the scene in the movie, October Sky, where Homer Hickam and a good
portion of the town observe a Sputnik transit is pure fiction?

Yes and no. A lot of people across America saw what they *thought*
was Sputnik - the fact that they saw a different object in orbit in
essentially irrelevant. Whether it was Sputnik itself, or the 3rd
stage - it was still something that had never been before, a man made
body in LEO.

I never read Hickam's book, so I do not know if this scene was from the
book or added later for the movie.

I do not recall if it was in the book - it's been a long time since I
read it.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
.

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