Celebrating Space Flight

With all the subtlety of a nuclear sneak attack, today's Drudge Report screams:

"GOOGLE celebrates day of Russia achievement. Sergey Brin orders search site to celebrate Sputnik's launch anniversary on web page..."

(Today is the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch)

Aren't we going just a tad bit overboard on this, Drudge? I mean, I understand not wanting to highlight one of America's great losses during the Cold War... but come on! Google isn't celebrating Russia's first victory in the Space Race (after all, we pretty much won that thing)... It is recognizing a major milestone in the course of human history. When Sputnik was launched in 1957, it represented humanity's first foray into space. For the first time, humanity became a starfaring race!

I love the Drudge Report, don't get me wrong. It's one of my homepages in my web browser. But this is poor form even by the standards of sensationalism. I can appreciate the need to keep the Russians down a notch - I mean after all, they're Russians. But this anniversary is bigger than that. And since I'm also a futurist, as well as a conservative, I appreciate large technological leaps (like getting into space) that put mankind on a new level. It's cool!

So, let's not make this anniversary into something it isn't (political) and keep it on the level of worldwide celebration. After all, if it wasn't for little Sputnik, Americans might never have had the motive and ambition to eventually send a man to the moon!