Note: I’m going to keep this post at the top of the page all day, so you might want to scroll to see if I’m putting up other stuff.

Homer and I continue our week-long space policy debate over at the LA Times, this time with a discussion of the event that kicked off the space age, and its impact down the five decades since.

[Update at 8 AM EDT]

Jeff Foust is having a Sputnikpallooza over at The Space Review today. In particular, you should read his essay on the wonder and disappointment of the past half century, which reflects and expands on a lot of the themes that I’ve been debating with Homer Hickam all week.

[Update a few minutes later]

Did Sputnik create the Internet? Well, it’s a stretch, but it was, at least indirectly, one of the pieces of the puzzle. Anyway, it has at least as good a claim as Al Gore…

[Update at quarter to nine]

Dwayne Day’s prognostication about military space systems fifty years from now is worth a read–they will look a lot like todays. But he has one key caveat, that could make them quite wrong:

Weapons delivery from space has been possible for decades. What has changed is that it is now possible to precisely deliver conventional weapons onto an enemy. But the cost is prohibitive compared to other forms of weapon delivery such as cruise missiles or bombers, which have the benefit of reusability. Given the cost of putting something into orbit, the goal is to keep it there as long as possible rather than bring it down to hit something. That seems unlikely to change barring a radical decrease in launch costs.

Emphasis mine.

[9:15 Update]

Lileks has Sputnik beeps.

Alan K. Henderson is collecting Sputnik links today as well.

[10 AM update]

Alan Boyle has a roundup of space history links, and is collecting Sputnik memories in comments. People are welcome to leave some here as well, of course. As I noted to Homer (as does Alan) we were a little too young for it to leave an impression. And of course, for many of my readers, it’s as far away an event for them as WW II was for me.

[Update at 10:25]

It’s Sputnik, the movie!

Update at 4 PM EDT]

The satellite versus the supermarket. How did we really win the Cold War? I wonder if this LA Times editorial was influenced by the week’s discussion between me and Homer?

[Update at 5 PM EDT]

Jim Oberg has further thoughts on Sputnik and the space age at fifty.

[Evening update]

My final thoughts for the anniversary on Sputnik, the past and the future, are up at TCSDaily.

[Update at 10 PM]

Tim Cavanaugh, at the LA Times, who masterminded my dust-up with Homer Hickam this week, has a piece on how space has been making us crazy for fifty years.

And our last dust-up edition is up, in which I talk about transhumans in space.