In 1869, a century before the moon landing, eighty-eight years before Sputnik 1, and one hundred nine years before the first navigational satellite, Edward Everett Hale used a science fiction story to propose launching an artificial satellite into polar orbit to enable anyone, anywhere, to determine their longitude by measuring the satellite’s elevation from the horizon.
Deorbiting the Space Station
Like the Mercury and Apollo capsules, like the space shuttles, the ISS, to borrow a phrase, belongs in a museum.
IGC Publishing 