Sputnik's Anniversary: Looking Forward
GSP staff scientist Laura Grego has written an opinion piece for the October 2007 issue of the journal Physics World.
The piece argues that space has always presented humans with tension between the desire to explore and the desire for military advantage. In the fifty years since the launch of Sputnik 1, spacefaring countries have built satellites which enrich our daily lives by facilitating scientific discovery, economic development, and global security, but also have made attempts to control space to attain military superiority. And that as a result, today, competition for space resources and apprehension over aggressive military space programs threaten our future in space, and we must look to diplomacy and the rule of law to make a graceful transition to a secure future in space and on earth.
