Book Report: The Worst Hard Time

15. The Worst Hard Time is a book focused on the survivor accounts of people living through the dust bowl in areas affected by the disaster, like Oklahoma and Texas. It tells of the stories of these people who witnessed 10,000 foot high clouds of dust whip across the land, and the way it affected the people, the animals, and the landscape, effectively destroying one of the richest ecosystems on the planet.

16. Blowing at about 50 mph, the dust storms of the 1930’s were powerful enough to scrape the paint off of buildings, crush trees, and even dent cars, before piling into huge 50 foot tall mounds. If any plantlife managed to survive the winds, millions of grasshoppers would finish it off in return. Children died of dust pneumonia, and livestock and cattle suffocated on dirt. Women hung wet sheets on windows, taped doors, and stuffed cracks with rags in attempt to block the dust from getting in, but nothing worked.

17.  In 1935, Roosevelt established the Soil Conservation Service, who built natural barriers, irrigation ponds, holding tanks, and rotated crops. Grass was restored in some areas, but after the rain returned, and prices for crops rose again, farmers harvested the landscape once again, causing the dust to return. The High Plains have yet to fully recover from this.

Sputnik

Video: http://youtu.be/qvPzUAeWZZY

The launch of Sputnik 1 marked one of the most monumental events in human history: it was the first man made satellite created to orbit the Earth. It was also the event that triggered the space race, which would continue to innovate technology with every country competing against one another to have the most advanced spacecraft. The project started on December 17th, 1954 when Sergie Korolov created the idea of developing an Earth orbiting satellite. Once his plan was approved, the space race had only just begun. Many scientists and engineers worked on this project, solving problems concerning orbit speed and velocity. October 4th, 1957 was the day that Sputnik was finally launched. 90 minutes after the launch, scientists heard the "beep beep beep" sound, confirming that the satellite was in full orbit. When Sputnik launched, it changed everything. From then in, countries were sending their own satellites up into space left and right, all with the goal of dominating the space race.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1

http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/

http://www.space.com/17563-sputnik.html