50年前,1957年的10月4日,苏联发射了斯普尼克号(Sputnik),这是第一枚人造卫星,震惊全美民众,开启了太空时代。在发射斯普尼克号之前,人类就已梦想了好一阵子的太空旅游。1903年,俄国的火箭专家齐奥尔科夫斯基(Konstantin Tsiolkovsky)由数学证明人造卫星是可行的,然而美国对他的研究却完全不在意。火箭学在数十年后发展起来,而太空飞行也颠覆了人们的想象。1952年,国际科学理事会(the International Council of Scientific Fifty years ago, on the 4th of October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik, the first man-made satellite that shocked people throughout the United States and opened the space age. Mankind had dreamed of space travel for a while before launching the Sputnik. In 1903 Russian rocket specialist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proved that satellites were feasible by mathematics, but the United States totally ignored him in his research. Rocket science developed decades later, and space flights have subverted people’s imagination. In 1952, the International Council of Scientific