Official News page 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: BUILD YOUR OWN SPUTNIK

by Hazed

I mentioned a few issues back that it was the 50th birthday of Sputknik, the first man-made satellite. At the time, it was an incredibly advanced piece of kit, but if you look at it now, fifty years later, it's made up of bits and pieces you would find in the average house.

Sputnik was a metal sphere almost 2 feet in diameter, containing a radio transmitter. It also had a battery; equipment to measure temperature; barometric and temperature activated switches; and a fan to stop it getting too hot. All it did was to send its "beep beep" signal to Earth, altering the radio transmission to indicate changes in temperature or pressure. And that's all.

Nowadays, you could find transmitters in mobile or cordless phones, wireless routers, even baby monitors. You probably have a thermometer in your first aid box. A balloon can easily be turned into a pressure switch; and there are temperature switches in all kinds of equipment, including the central heating thermostat, the washing machine or the electric oven. As for batteries and fans - surely no problem!

So how would you go about putting these things together to make your very own Sputnik? Well, if you read this BBC News article then you can find out. Sadly, they don't go so far as to explain how you can get it launched into orbit.

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