Quotessence
Home / Topics / Sputnik Quotes

Sputnik Quotes

Browse 22 quotes about Sputnik.

Sputnik Quotes

“In the tumbling roll of the satellite, the little window turning over and over on the world, Laika was looking at everything there is, everything there ever was, her eyes taking in starlight that traveled across oceans of time to reach her, light from distant galaxies, from across a billion years, and she was looking down on the living Earth from orbit, even if in a chaotic whirl of the satellite's motion, and she was the first to take in this view. She saw the Earth, the blue marble, fragile, vulnerable, a kind of spaceship itself floating in the black void, impossibly alone.”

SpaceDogSputnikLaika
Book:Laika's Window: The Legacy of a Soviet Space Dog
Create image

“I have to wonder, when Laika was a street dog in Moscow, did someone feed her, help her, give her a warm place to sleep on a cold winter night? Did a kind restaurateur give her food scraps when she appeared at the alley door? Was that someone a man, a woman, or several men or women? Was Laika befriended by a child? Did these people I am imagining mark that day when Laika, who was always there, was suddenly gone? And living through those next decades, and to the end of their lives, did they know (how could they know?) that the stray dog from the streets they had become so fond of was the same dog they read about in the newspapers and heard about on the radio, the now world-famous dog orbiting the Earth?”

SpaceDogSputnikLaika
Author:Kurt Caswell
Create image

“In that moment they must have acknowledged, even if only privately, that Laika was both simultaneously alive and dead—a kind of Schrödinger's cat—that the capsule was a container inside which she was alive, but from which she would never escape. In that moment the window became a medium through which they might witness the drama of her end, if only they could follow her that far, and a medium through which they might imagine their own ends and the fate of our own capsule, the Earth, which will not last forever. Where Laika was going—into the stars, into death—the scientists and engineers knew they were going too. Like her, they would go alone, as we all must go one day.”

DeathSpaceDogSputnikLaika
Book:Laika's Window: The Legacy of a Soviet Space Dog
Create image

“The time will come when a spacecraft carrying human beings will leave the earth and set out on a voyage to distant planets - to remote worlds. Today this may seem only an enticing fantasy, but such in fact is not the case. The launching of the first two Soviet Sputniks has already thrown a sturdy bridge from the earth into space, and the way to the stars is open”

WorldWayFirstsHumansMayTwoFactsSeemsTodayEarthStarsHuman BeingsSpaceCasesFantasyPlanetsBridgesThrownSovietWorld TodayVoyagesLaunchingSturdyEnticingSpacecraftSputnik
Author:Sergei Korolev
Create image

“A little righteous anger really brings out the best in the American personality. Our nation was born when 56 patriots got mad enough to sign the Declaration of Independence. We put a man on the moon because Sputnik made us mad at being number two in space. Getting mad in a constructive way is good for the soul- and the country.”

MenWayLittlesMadeTwoSoulCountryEnoughNationsBornSpaceNumbersPersonalityMoonIndependenceMadRighteousPatriotDeclarationConstructiveDeclaration Of IndependenceRighteous AngerSputnik
Author:Lee Iacocca
Create image

“My platitudes don't hold their interest and I can hardly blame them for that. My real stories are all out of date. So what if I can speak firsthand about the Spanish flu, the advent of the automobile, world wars, cold wars, guerrilla wars, and Sputnik — that's all ancient history now. But what else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet.”

IfsWorldI CanWarRealMatterStoriesRealityHappensSpeakInterestReadyColdOffersBlameAncientWar Of The WorldsWhat IfCold WarGetting OldAutomobileFluNot ReadyAdventPlatitudesGuerrillasReal StoryAncient HistoryCruxSputnik
Author:Sara Gruen
Create image

“I know that some knowledgeable people fear that although we might be willing to spend a couple of billion dollars in 1958, because we still remember the humiliation of Sputnik last October, next year we will be so preoccupied by color television, or new-style cars, or the beginning of another national election, that we will be unwilling to pay another year's installment on our space conquest bill. For that to happen well, I'd just as soon we didn't start.”

PeopleKnowsYearsWellsStillsMightHappensLastsRememberNextSpacePayCarStyleTelevisionColorWillingCoupleFutureElectionBillsDollarsBillionsPredictionsHumiliationConquestNext YearUnwillingOctoberKnowledgeableAnother YearSputnikColor Television
Author:Hugh Latimer Dryden
Create image

“The first man-made satellite to orbit the earth was named Sputnik. The first living creature in space was Laika. The first rocket to the Moon carried a red flag. The first photograph of the far side of the Moon was made with a Soviet camera. If a man orbits the earth this year his name will be Ivan.”

IfsMenYearsFirstsMadeEarthNamesSidesSpaceFutureMoonCreaturesRedCamerasPhotographSovietFlagsPredictionsRocketsOrbitLiving CreaturesSatellitesRed FlagsFar SideSputnik
Author:John F. Kennedy
Create image