1996/99
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Stándún's Station
A fleaseye view of Outer Space
15 October 1997
by Fr Padraig Stándún
It's hard to believe that it is almost forty years since the first manmade satellite was sent into space by what then seemed to be the all powerful Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It was big news at the time even though we hardly wonder now as teams of spacemen and women are shuttled up and down to the MIR space station.
It was the second satellite or "Sputnik" that really caught my imagination, because that is the one that took the dog (Loika, if I remember correctly) into space. Joe Mitchell, our schoolmaster in Clogher National School gave us a composition to write - " I am a flea on the back of the dog that went up in the satellite".
It was probably that essay that started my career as a writer, such as it is. To look at the world and space from the view of a flea set the imagination racing. By the time I was finished, that humble flea was a firm friend as it hurtled through space at breakneck speed.
That was then and this is now. I remember Yuri Gagarin returning from space with the immortal words that he had seen no sign of God out there, clear proof that "Godless Russia" as we call it, though they were on the right track with regard to the suppression of religion.
I vividly remember the day the first men walked on the moon, not so much because of their achievements but because of the danger the gang I worked with that Summer in Birmingham were in the afternoon.
One of six large electric cables running through a park in Perry Barr had been damaged by machinery. It was our job to dig it up and replace it without interfering with the other cables. I remember a big iron bucket swinging overhead on a crane, overloaded, with its danger siren ringing constantly.
The job had to be done fast and the paddies in the trench were expendable. I certainly felt closer to death than Armstrong and Aldrin were on that day.
The space race was for many years a dangerous competition with the USSR and USA vying with each other to get ahead and stay ahead. It was also dangerous, not just for the astronauts but for the world.
The concept of "Star Wars" loomed over all of us until the Berlin Wall fell and the Russians and Americans began to cooperate on MIR.
It often seems a huge waste of time and money, with so many other problems needing to be solved. But could we do now without satellite TV and all the other benefits of the space age? Weather forecasters have the ability to track storms, though there are those who say a study of birds and the moon used to be just as effective.
One thing sure, there is a lot of scrap metal floating around in space as the damage to the MIR satellite proved. But all in all the benefits probably outweigh the disadvantages. Maybe it's time we got another fleaseye view of outerspace.
