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외계에 대한 인간의 의식 영구히 바꿔놓은 인공위성 스푸트니크 (E)


미국과 소련과의 우주경쟁은 50년전인 1957년 10월 4일 구소련에서 최초의 인공위성을 발사함으로써 시작됐습니다. 지금은 초기와 같은 심한 경쟁은 없지만 세계 최초의 인공위성 스푸트니크가 외계에 대한 인식과 가능성을 영구적으로 바꿔놓았는데 전문가들은 동의하고 있습니다.

1957년 소련에 의해서 발사된 세계 최초의 인공위성인 스프트니크는58cm의 직경에83kg크기의 이상한 모양의 삐죽 뻗어나온 안테나를 지닌 은색 호박모양을 하고 있습니다. 또 하나 빼놓을 수 없는 것은 스프트니크가 지구 궤도에 있을 때 내는 유명한 소리입니다.

미국 워싱턴에 소재한 조지 워싱턴대학의 우주정책연구소의 소장인 존 로그스톤씨는 1957년 스프트니크가 발사됐을 당시만해도19세의 대학생으로 솔직히 집 근처 행사에 더 흥미가 있었다고 합니다.

로그스톤 소장은 마침 그날은 월드시리즈에서 밀워키 브레이브스팀이 뉴욕 양키즈팀을 이긴 날이어서 친구들과 축하파티에 갔었다고 말했습니다.

그러나 이후 로그스톤 소장은 우주경쟁의 흥미에 사로잡혀서 우주과학의 길로 접어들었습니다.

소련과 우주경쟁에 뒤질 것을 우려한 미국 의회는 1958년 미항공우주국 NASA를 창설하는 법을 통과시켰습니다. 이러한 미국의 우려는 1961년 4월 12일 소련의 우주인 유리 가가린이 첫 우주비행에 성공함으로써 현실로 나타났습니다.

이로부터 한달 후 미국의 존 F 케네디 대통령은 한 연설에서 미국이 소련과 우주경쟁에 돌입했음을 처음으로 시사했습니다.

케네디 대통령은 연설에서 소련이 우주경쟁에서 앞선 사실을 인정하지만 우주를 향한 노력을 결코 멈추지 않을 것이라고 강조했습니다.

소련이 첫우주인을 배출한후 거의 일년후 존 글랜이 미국의 첫 우주인이 됬습니다. 당시 대학원생이었던 로그스톤 소장은 바로 그 때 인생에서 무엇을 해야 할지를 깨달았다고 말합니다.

로그스톤 소장은 당시에는 우주가 주변의 모든 세상을 지배했다고 회고합니다. 그 해에는 존 글랜이 첫 우주비행을 했고 케네디 대통령이 우주탐험을 약속했기 때문입니다. 로그스톤 소장은 모든 것이 새롭고 흥미로웠다고 말합니다. 그리고는 우주를 둘러싼 국제관계와 정치문제에 대해 글을 쓰기 시작했다는 것입니다.

오늘날은 러시아인 ,미국인, 유럽인들이 국제 우주정거장에서 공동으로 우주에 대해 연구하고 있습니다.

NASA기획 담당자인 제임스 마서씨는 천문학자들은 지구와 비슷한 행성을 발견하기 위해 망원경을 가능한한 멀리 있는 은하계의 행성을 향해 배치할 계획이라고 말합니다.

그리고 이런 모든 우주연구의 시작은 50년 전 스프트니크라는 투박하고 작은 인공위성과 함께 시작됐습니다.

Fifty years ago, on October 4, 1957, the former Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite into Earth's orbit, called Sputnik, which began a space race with the United States. While the intense competition that marked the early years of space no longer exists, experts agree Sputnik forever changed the perception of outer space and its possibilities. VOA's Jessica Berman reports.

With a diameter of 58 centimeters and weighing about 83 kilograms, Sputnik was about the size of a large, silvery pumpkin, with strange-looking antennae protruding from it.

And then there was the famous sound picked up by radio operators around the world as Sputnik orbited the earth.

John Logsdon is director of the space policy institute at George Washington University in Washington. On October 4, 1957, when Sputnik was launched, Logston was a 19-year-old college student who was more interested in events closer to home.

"The Milwaukee Braves beat the New York Yankees in the [baseball] World Series on that day, and we all went to Milwaukee to party," he said.

But Logston's career path would soon be determined, as he got caught up in the excitement of the space race.

Concerned about Soviet gains, the U.S. Congress in 1958 passed a law that led to the formation of the U.S. space agency NASA.

On April 12, 1961, America's worst fears were realized when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth, beating the United States with a man in space.

One month later, in a now famous speech, President John F. Kennedy signaled the beginning of the space race with the Soviets.

"Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets, with their large rocket engines, which gives them many months of lead time, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come, in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts on our own," he said. "For, while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last."

Almost a year after Gargarin's feat, astronaut John Glenn became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth.

By that time, Logston, a graduate student, says he knew what he wanted to do.

"Space was happening all around me at that point. It was the year of John Glenn's flight. Kennedy had committed us to go to the moon. It was all new and all very exciting, so I started writing papers about the political and international relations dimensions of space," said Logston.

The remainder of the 1960s saw a frenzy of activity culminating with the first American astronaut to land on the moon, Neil Armstrong.

The 1970s was the decade of Skylab, the forerunner of the International Space Station. Astronauts, performing a series of spacewalks, studied the effects of microgravity on humans,

Alexei Kojevnikov, a history of science professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, says the United States benefited far more from the space race than did the former Soviet Union.

Kojevnikov says America's intense focus on space attracted an international pool of talent.

"Science in the United States became much more culturally diverse and racially diverse by including many more women and many more representatives of other ethnicities and races in the profession of science, an unintended but probably the most serious consequence that Sputnik had on the profession of science," he said.

John Logston of the George Washington University says the U.S. space effort, in particular, Apollo missions to the moon, had a profound effect on the American psyche.

But Logston believes the pride generated by Apollo sidetracked the United States' space exploration efforts.

"By spending the decade of the sixties going to the moon and stopping, then we had to start over in the outward movement of first low earth orbit, first a system to get there with a space shuttle, then a [international] space station, and now, finally, a renewed commitment to human exploration," he added.

Today, Russians, Americans and Europeans work in collaboration on the International Space Station, an orbiting scientific outpost where research is carried out in the weightlessness of outer space.

The orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, has beamed back hundreds-of-thousands of pictures of distant galaxies, giving astronomers unprecedented views of the Universe.

The successor to Hubble will be the James Webb Space Telescope, named after the man who organized the Apollo program.

James Mather, NASA's project manager for the James Webb telescope, says the infrared telescope will be launched by a European rocket, and unfold in space some 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

"And then, with that, it will be able to see the most distant objects, which are now, since we are looking back in time by looking at things far away, we'll be able to see things that are as near as possible to the Big Bang itself," he said.

Mather says astronomers plan to point the telescope at planets in distant galaxies, possibly discovering others with Earth-like features. And it all started 50 years ago with a clunky little satellite called Sputnik.

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