46 years ago tonight, Americans tuning in to watch Lee Marvin in "M Squad" on TV Friday night at 9PM were interrupted by a news bulletin, "The Soviet Union announced it had successfully launched an 180LB artificial sattellite Sputnik 1 into orbit around the Earth." Its radio signals could be heard by amateur radio enthusiasts at 20MHz and it could be seen by most Americans. Although I was just a kid, with that announcement I knew that the world had changed and the space race begun. I read every newspaper and magazine I could get my hands on. Since Al Gore had not yet invented the internet and radio and TV folks couldn't understand Newton's Laws, those were the best sources of real info.