President Barack Obama’s reference yesterday to the nation facing a new “Sputnik moment’’ referenced an event more than 53 years ago.
• SPUTNIK: The Soviet Union on Oct. 4, 1957, launched a spiky artificial satellite, the first such device to orbit the planet. It transmitted for 22 days in October until its batteries ran out, and burned up as it fell from orbit on Jan. 4, 1958.
• SPACE RACE: The launching of Sputnik 1 began the “space race,’’ as the threat of a Soviet-dominated space spurred the U.S. government to increase by tenfold the amount spent on science, education and research.
• SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY: Communications and weather satellites are now commonplace, helping to feed the information explosion that allowed Obama’s speech at Forsyth Technical Community College to be beamed around the world through networks such as CNN.
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