Only little less than sixty years ago on October 4th 1957 a technology was born that changed human history forever, and ushered in a radically new vision of the planet we live on. For twenty-one days artificial earth made satellite Sputnik 1 broadcast radio signals beeping every two seconds and was visible streaking across the night sky every 96 minutes. The impact of this alone has driven technological revolutions in computing, communications, transportation, weather forecasting, and trade none of which would have been possible without the space race that Sputnik triggered. Globalization would not exist to the same extent without the efforts of hundreds of thousands of engineers, and technicians working on space technologies inside what is essentially a publicly funded effort through NASA (“Globalization of Science”, 2010), and countless other organizations worldwide. Space technology is a critical and little studied strategic component of Globalization without which Globalization today would not exist.
Everything we take for granted under the umbrella term Globalization became possible because of the space race. Photos of the entire earth are inspiring every new …show more content…
The average lifespan of a satellite is ten to fifteen years after which it is parked in a junkyard orbit, or burned up in Earth 's atmosphere. To mitigate the wastefulness of space debris and having to rebuild and relaunch newer satellites every decade or so, the concept of a “Space Tug” is currently being advanced (“Space Tug”, 2013). Other negatives are the cost and hazards linked to going to space, but even those issues are slowly being tackled increasingly by private money. SpaceX, and Blue Origin are both conducting research, and building prototypes of the next generation of reusable rockets to sustain our efforts to keep us in space economically and for the long term (Orwig,
Everything we take for granted under the umbrella term Globalization became possible because of the space race. Photos of the entire earth are inspiring every new …show more content…
The average lifespan of a satellite is ten to fifteen years after which it is parked in a junkyard orbit, or burned up in Earth 's atmosphere. To mitigate the wastefulness of space debris and having to rebuild and relaunch newer satellites every decade or so, the concept of a “Space Tug” is currently being advanced (“Space Tug”, 2013). Other negatives are the cost and hazards linked to going to space, but even those issues are slowly being tackled increasingly by private money. SpaceX, and Blue Origin are both conducting research, and building prototypes of the next generation of reusable rockets to sustain our efforts to keep us in space economically and for the long term (Orwig,