"Our great leader, Chairman Mao, has stated, 'We too should produce man-made satellites.' We are happy to announce that this great call by Chairman Mao has come true." With that characteristic bombast, the New China News Agency last week announced an important technological achievement: the successful lofting of a 381-lb. satellite into earth orbit.
Besides broadcasting the Maoist unofficial anthem ("The East is Red, the sun rises, Mao Tse-tung comes out in the East . . ."), the latest satellite was roughly twice the size of the earliest 1957-vintage Russian Sputnik 1. Its launching demonstrated that China has joined...
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