Google Loves Sputnik

Russia is having a celebration today!

Google is celebrating, too.



ABC News is also whooping it up.



It's the 50th anniversary of Sputnik!

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Russia on Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the tiny satellite whose crackly beeps started the Space Race between the Cold War superpowers.

"We Were First," trumpeted a headline in the popular Izvestia daily. "At 22:28 Moscow time on October 4, 1957, humanity entered a new space age. The Soviet Union sent the Earth's first artificial satellite into orbit."

Veterans of the Soviet space programme laid flowers near the Kremlin wall at the grave of Sergei Korolyov, the space pioneer who created Sputnik and whose identity was a state secret throughout his life.

A monument to the satellite, whose name means fellow traveller, was unveiled near Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory message to Russia's space scientists, saying: "The launch of the Earth's first satellite was a truly historic event, which started a space age in the world."

Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov also praised a "tremendous" achievement.

The launch of Sputnik 1 was a huge propaganda coup for the Soviet Union in its rivalry with the United States and is being interpreted in the same vein 50 years later amid heightened Russian assertiveness.

"On that day, October 4 1957, America was seized by panic," Russia's space agency Roskosmos recalled in a statement announcing a special film on the launch.

The event was at first played down in Soviet official media but quickly prompted awed headlines in Western newspapers and caught the United States badly off balance.

The hurried launch of a US satellite in December 1957 was a flop, or "flopnik," as the London Daily Herald observed in a headline, barely getting off the ground before it burst into flames.

By then Russia had already launched Sputnik 2, which carried a dog into orbit, to become the first space casualty.

Sputnik 1, a silvery orb with four frond-like antennae whose signals could be heard around the world, also helped inspire a generation of astronauts and scientists.

The satellite was the first of several early achievements for the Soviet Union's space programme, including sending the first human being, Yury Gagarin, into space in 1961 -- another stinging loss of face for the United States.

The United States later took the upper hand with the first manned mission to the Moon in 1969. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, famously dubbed his step "one giant leap for mankind."

Let's see:

"We Were First."

The launch of Sputnik 1 was a huge propaganda coup for the Soviet Union in its rivalry with the United States.

"On that day, October 4 1957, America was seized by panic."

The hurried launch of a US satellite in December 1957 was a flop, or "flopnik," as the London Daily Herald observed in a headline, barely getting off the ground before it burst into flames.

The satellite was the first of several early achievements for the Soviet Union's space programme, including sending the first human being, Yury Gagarin, into space in 1961 -- another stinging loss of face for the United States.

Gee, the U.S. space program really sucked.

All those stinging losses. All that panic.

Give me a break!

Yes, Sputnik did catch the U.S. off balance.

Yes, the launch of the first satellite was a significant event.

But let's get some perspective here.

As the article notes, "The United States later took the upper hand with the first manned mission to the Moon in 1969."

No kidding.

Landing a man on the Moon and safely returning him to Earth is much more than taking "the upper hand" in the space race.

Good grief.

I'm not surprised that Russia would celebrate Sputnik, especially given the fact that the Soviet Union suffered kind of a stinging loss by LOSING THE COLD WAR.

But must Google be agog over Sputnik?

Must ABC rush to the party?