There is a scene in Dances with Wolves after Costner's character has arrived at the deserted Dakota base in which he discovers the company's garbage pile. He gives it a disappointing, scrutinizing look as he recognizes it's another harbinger of what is to come for the plains and its people. Fast forward 150 years to a different kind of frontier: space, in near-Earth orbit. There, we find a similar garbage pile, only this one is traveling at 30,000 miles per hour and threatens all the satellites and telescopes and space stations floating about.

When Sputnik 1 was launched 50 years ago today, no one truly anticipated the resounding impact it would have on science, technology and the balance of political power around the world. Not least the Soviets, who were hesitant to divert precious resources from their fledgling ballistic-missile program for what many in the government regarded as one man's fanciful hobby.