"The East is Red" is a pretty fire name ngl
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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Not to get too "um actually" on this but Sputnik 1 predates Explorer 1
Does any part of this suggest otherwise?
Yes, the order of the guys.
china really went 60% of the way to naming their satellite Touhou Koumakyou
Ah the second first touhou game.
Canada was the 4th country with a satellite, and the 3rd country to fully construct its own satellite. It called that satellite Alouette 1, followed by Alouette 2, then ISIS 1 and 2 (International Satellites for Ionospheric Studies, not the other one).
The list of launches is pretty funny.
- Sputnik 1 (success); USSR
- Sputnik 2 (success); USSR
Then an absolutely frantic series of US attempts
- Vanguard 1A (failure); USA
- Explorer 1 (success); USA
- Vanguard 1B (failure); USA
- Explorer 2 (failure); USA
- Vanguard 1C (success); USA
- Explorer 3 (success); USA
- Vanguard 2A (failure); USA
Then another Sputnik
- Sputnik 3 (success); USSR
Then more frantic attempts by the USA
- Vanguard 2B (failure); USA
- Vanguard 2C (failure); USA
- Explorer 4 (success); USA
- Pioneer 0 (failure); USA
- ~~Pioneer~~ Explorer 5 (failure); USA
- Vanguard 2D (failure); USA
- Pioneer 1 (partial success); USA
- Beacon 1 (failure); USA
- Pioneer 2 (failure); USA
Then 1959 started with Luna 1, a partially successful launch from the USSR.
Mild confusing, Pioneer 5 launched before Pioneer 1? Whose bright idea was that?
Oops, I messed up. That should have been Explorer 5.
no no your list is right it's reality that's wrong
I read in another place that Japan was the fourth to launch a satellite in February of 1970, it looks like that other article means ‘launched using their own rocktet’, and Canada launched 8 years earlier than Japan using NASA rocket
Everybody wants to make their own achievement sound better.
- The UK was the third country with a satellite, but didn't fully build their own satellite.
- Canada was the fourth, but third to fully build their own satellite, but they didn't use their own rocket.
- Italy was the fifth and also launched a satellite they built, but used an American rocket.
- France was the sixth country with a satellite, but the first to launch outside the US or USSR using their own rocket.
- Australia was the seventh country with a satellite, but the third to launch a satellite in its own territory; France launched from Algeria in 1965 which had been independent since 1962. But, Australia used an American rocket, not its own design.
- West Germany was the eighth country with a satellite, but it was launched from a US rocket on a US base.
- Japan was the ninth country with a satellite, but it used its own rocket from its own territory. So, 9th with a satellite, 5th to launch outside the US and USSR, 4th to launch from its own territory, and 4th to launch with its own rocket.
“Asterix” being some spin on the latin word for “star”, aster.
You claiming that I'm not a star? tok tok tok
Oublie-ix that line of thought!
Well, there's certainly a double entendre in chosing it as the name of a satellite, but it definitely comes from the name of tgat comic book character. Which itself is a play on asterisque (this symbol: *), which, of course, comes in turn from aster as you said.
His compagnon Obélix has a name which works on two levels: It can be seen as a play on obelisk (he is himself a sculptor of menhirs, which are vaguely similar to obelisks), but "obèle" is also the French word for the dagger symbol (†), which is an alternative to the asterisk.
Oh, I never knew about that second reference for Obélix!
I should really read them again, I probably missed 80% of the jokes as a kid.
Netflix has a new animated Asterix series which is really good, modernized (as far as the puns are concerned -- e.g. one of the Romans is named "Fastandfurious") but still very much in the spirit of the original. The live-action series is nowhere near as good.
Thank you for sharing this, a great little TIL to go with my morning coffee!
Which was taken from Greek.
The "star" comes from the fact that his name is a pun on asterisk. *
Sputnik is a fun word in Russian. It comes from the prefix s- (with), the suffix -nik (one who), and the root -put- (path). A sputnik, then, is someone or something who travels a path with you, and it is also a model of train (because it travels with the tracks) and a word for spouse (because they travel your life's path with you).
I'm pretty sure the model of train is a proper name and it's named after the satellite. I don't think I would describe any train as a literal "sputnik" of the rails.
Also Russian is full of composite words like that. "Explorer" in russian would be "исследователь" (issledovatel') - ис (completely) + след (trace/footstep) + оват (make, imbue) + ель (he who). Literally it would be "he who makes (places) completely (covered in) footsteps"
i find that incredibly fascinating and also so emotional like pure poetry in just one word, neat
In (some parts of) Germany a Sputnik is a sausage with a slice of cheese in it, wrapped in bacon, pierced by a toothpick and baked in the oven.
Was looking for a picture of one and found none. So now I'm contemplating if I'm going insane.
Those parts might be centred around your family kitchen, much like the northern lights
Probably, was in a small village in the Swabian Alps
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The Russians call Germans "nemtsy" or "the mute ones" because allegedly the Germans were the first ethnic group the Russians encountered who didn't speak their language and so they assumed they couldn't speak at all. The sausage sounds delicious, though, so maybe they just weren't speaking because they were eating cheese-stuffed bacon-wrapped sausages.
That anecdote doesn't make any sense though. Like who are "the Russians" and why didn't they have prior knowledge of other ethnic groups before? And "the Germans" is a very recent group of people that isn't ethnic at all.
By "Germans" I mean "the early Germanic peoples who occupied the region that became Germany" and "Russians" I mean "the early Slavic peoples who occupied the region that became Russia". I kinda just assumed folks would understand the modern federal German state didn't exist when early Slavs first encountered other ethnic groups and could work backwards from there.
In times of authoritarian and fascist uprising, I think we should be careful what ideas we spread. The telling of a "German" or "Russian" people that are "natural" ethnicities is not far from right wing ideology. Why would you even use "Germans" and "Germanic people" synonymously? That's anachronistic and they don't really have anything to do with each other. Some Germanic people also lived where Ukraine is now btw.
It isn't even clear if "Germanic peoples" existed as a distinct group of people:
Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic".[3] Some scholars call for the term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence.[4] Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity.
Oh, and the Nazis did synonymize both Germans and Germanic peoples as well:
The publishing of Tacitus's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced the emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the Romantic period, such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by romantic nationalism. For those scholars, the "Germanic" and modern "German" were identical. Ideas about the early Germans were also highly influential among members of the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later co-opted by the Nazis. During the second half of the 20th century, the controversial misuse of ancient Germanic history and archaeology was discredited and has since resulted in a backlash against many aspects of earlier scholarship.
To synonymize "Russians" with "Slavic people" is also wrong, as Slavic people where a diverse group of very different people living in a different regions of the world. We also don't know where the early Slavic people lived exactly.
Sure. What words am I allowed to use when relating this anecdote in the future without being called a nazi? A simple blocklist and allowlist is the easiest format for me.
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Is it a specific sausage or any sausage because no reason I'm not hungry
Username checks out?
i'm like constantly stoned dude. mention food and i want to eat it.
so, "pathfinder"?
More like companion.
If the "pa" part of "companion" comes from path it's basically exactly the same: "s" and "co" are both "with" and "nik" and "ion" are similar noun endings.
If the “pa” part of “companion” comes from path
It doesn't though, it comes from French compagnon/compaignon and then Latin com (with) + panis (bread). It probably originally meant "someone with whom you share bread (eat together)".
And actually, looking at wiktionary, Old English had a word "ġefēra" (with the same meaning) which is constructed very similarly to "спутник": ge ('with', still the same prefix in german e.g. Gebrüder) + fera ('to go'/'to fare', e.g. in seafaring)
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I might translate it that way in some contexts, but if you told me Lewis and Clark were "sputniks" I'd assume you meant they got married in secret, rather than that they were explorers.
Especially now that I found out it involves a bacon cheese sausage somehow
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Fascinating, so it means 🇨🇿 spoluputovník or 🇩🇪 Mitwanderer
AN INDOMITABLE GAULISH NAME FOR AN INDOMITABLE GAULISH SATELLITE!
Ils sont fous, ces Française.
Ils? Peut-être "nous"?
Je suis anglais. But also I was trying to keep the catchphrase intact.
Named ours after a bird and funny kid's song.
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