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Sputnik's beep
Sputnik 1, 4 October 1957 · Audio file
It starts with a beep. The first satellite did nothing but transmit this, and the world listened in on amateur radios.
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We choose to go
The space race in nine short moments, each only as long as it needs to be: a beep from orbit, a president's promise, a Christmas Eve from lunar orbit, the landing, and the phone call that followed.
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