Nineteen fifty seven was the year I started school and the year space travel commenced. October this year is the 50th anniversary of the three week long flight of Sputnik I.

At that time my Dad was working as a scientist in Australia's CSIRO Radio Research Board (RRB) under Dr David F Martyn based in the Sydney area. (He in started in this work in Janyuary 1946 and left it in 1960). This research group was investigating the structure and behaviour of the upper atmosphere. The experimental side of this work involved transmitting radio signals up and observing to the reflected signals returned. This meant that there was a selection of antennas, receivers and expertise available to receive signals from the first spacecraft.

One Saturday afternoon Dad drove us to a building in the grounds of the University of Sydney. I remember being in a room dimly lit by outside light through high blinded windows. There were large grey equipment racks, some with dark knobs, glowing dials and lamps on front panels. I remember one with a round green CRT display. There was the dull red glow of valve heaters visible where there were no front panels. On a work table there was an incomplete looking metalwork thing and some cylindrical objects with wire pigtails. I had seen a similar sight in a WWII bunker used by RRB near Camden Airport, back before I started school. The room had a wonderful mysterious feel.

Knobs were adjusted then we waited, Dad attempting but failing to explain Sputnik. Then it started, bleeep bleeep bleeep bleeep. The explanations then became simpler. The sound was coming by radio from 90 miles above from the first manmade orbiting satellite. My first thought was this was like many other bleeps I had heard while near equipment racks. But I then realised the usually unemotional Dad was keen to share both the facts and his excitement, about this scientific and technical advance. Soon the bleeps ceased. We left the magical room and went back to normality and home.

My recollection is that Sputnik I was not visible to the unassisted eye due to its small size but that the final rocket stage was. However, Dad said these didn’t pass over Sydney at dusk or dawn and so he couldn’t show it to me. I think the rocket stage was visible further south. In the next month, on November 3rd, Sputnik II was launched. This was visible in the evening sky from my home; we saw its star-like appearance hurrying across the sky with its dog and, I assumed, its bleeper.