Sputnik 1 (/ˈspʌtnɪk, ˈspʊtnɪk/, ‹See Tfd›Russian: Спутник-1, Satellite 1) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries became depleted. Aerodynamic drag caused it to fall back into the atmosphere on 4 January 1958. The world’s first observation was made at the school observatory in Rodewisch (Saxony).
It was a polished metal sphere 58 cm (23 in) in diameter with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Its radio signal was easily detectable by amateur radio operators, and the 65° orbital inclination made its flight path cover virtually the entire inhabited Earth.
The satellite’s success was unanticipated by the United States. This precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, part of the Cold War. The launch was the beginning of a new era of political, military, technological, and scientific developments. The word sputnik is Russian for satellite when interpreted in an astronomical context; its other meanings are spouse or traveling companion.
Tracking and studying Sputnik 1 from Earth provided scientists with valuable information. The density of the upper atmosphere could be deduced from its drag on the orbit, and the propagation of its radio signals gave data about the ionosphere.
Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No.1/5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR (now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome). The satellite traveled at a peak speed of about 8 km/s (18,000 mph), taking 96.20 minutes to complete each orbit. It transmitted on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz, which were monitored by radio operators throughout the world. The signals continued for 22 days until the transmitter batteries depleted on 26 October 1957. On 4 January 1958, after three months in orbit, Sputnik 1 burned up while reentering Earth’s atmosphere, having completed 1,440 orbits of the Earth, and travelling a distance of approximately 70,000,000 km (43,000,000 mi).
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Anyone have recommendations on what I should read as a per-requisite to understanding Baudrillard’s Simulation & Simulacra book? It looks way too cromulent for me as someone who’s read very little philosophy.
I keep hearing about the book though and the concepts seem tantalizing to me, at least as read on Wikipedia. I’d love to engage with the actual text
Uhh… like, no shit, The Matrix? It was heavily inspired by Baud’s ideas and that shows up in the different levels of the Matrix and they way Neo learns to interact with the Matrix as he goes from believing it is real, but steadily learning not only that it isn’t real by that it’s a set of symbols, code in this case, that he can see and manipulate.
The City and the City bu Mieville might be another one. It’s a mindbender crime story about two cities that exist in the same geographic space but are strictly separated by the cultural rules of the people living there. It’s really mindbending because the barriers are absolute, but they’re barriers of belief rather than physical barriers, and much of the meat of the story comes from trying to understand how the characters perceive their very unusual world.
Inception might be a good one to check out, too, as it is also very much about what reality is, how we try to engage with reality, and how we fail.
Maybe Catch-22? Catch-22 has a lot to say about, idk, how reality becomes distorted by what people accept as normal.
Like I think that hits at some of it, like Yossarian recognizes that he’s in a war, while Clevinger can’t see Yossarian as a normal person who doesn’t want to get shot because he’s so wrapped up in the bizarre logic of an insane situation. Idk.
But those would be my reccomends to get yourself in a sufficiently bent mindscape.
Yeah I think I might be on something with the Baudrillard/Catch-22 thing, apparently some papers have been written on it; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328672978_The_Catch_of_the_Hyperreal_Yossarian_and_the_Ideological_Vicissitudes_of_Hyperreality