Okay, but the fact remains that when October 1957 began, no one had ever launched any sort of craft into space. Then on October 4, the Soviets got a little ball (23 inches diameter) with antennas sticking out of it into a very low orbit. In December, we in the U.S. attempted to counter with our own even smaller satellite (six inches in diameter), but it crashed and burned on the launching pad and was dubbed “Flopnik”. What would an oddsmaker say at that point about the notion that eleven and a half years later, we’d get men on the moon, walking around on the lunar surface, and then return them safely to Earth?
Not just children either. My grandfather was born in 1887, would have sen flight before and during his service in the Great War, then jets and the landing on the moon.
He died in 1977. Future generations may look back and think I saw something as radical in my lifetime, but a Blu Ray player doesn’t excite me a great deal.
Many of us lived before the time of PCs and internet. That’s pretty significant.
When I was a kid reading comic books, there was zero chance of a live-action superhero movie not looking incredibly fake and dumb.
Yes, quite true. I suppose I have so far seen Commodore 64’s go to smart phones. Still doesn’t seem quite as dramatic though.
There exists a picture of the surviving Wright brother with an Air Force officer watching an F-86 in flight. 
A photographer on the Outer Banks took a nighttime photo of the Wright Memorial in Kitty Hawk, with the Moon high in the sky, at the very moment that he heard Neil Armstrong say “That’s one small step…” on his portable radio. An amazing span of history packed into that single photograph and 66 years.
The Apollo 11 astronauts also took with them a tiny swatch of fabric from the 1903 Wright Flyer; you can see it at the Natl. Air and Space Museum.
In the last days of my grandfather, I often wondered, given the many things that went away, came along, or both came AND went in his lifetime, if he may feel like someone who was at some point abducted by very, very subtle aliens.
A little advertising pieceI really like about the trajectory of aviation. Have linked to it before IIRC.
Progress in aerospace seems to have become mostly qualitative rather than quantitative after the 70s
It does seem that a long-lived person born about the time of your grandfather, in the Gilded Age, would have seen an especially great transformation of middle class society. Regardless of when they were invented, your grandfather would remember a time when a middle class household would not be expected to have electricity, radio, recorded music, a telephone, refrigerator, or automobile. But by relatively early in his adulthood, they would all be de rigueur. And then of course there’s all the historical developments he saw.
I’m not sure Kitty Hawk is an appropriate starting point for the history of manned, powered flight, though. As early as 1785, balloonists flew safely across the English Channel and ascended to many thousands of feet of altitude. Frankly, I think that’s more impressive, especially for the time, than the Wright Brothers getting a “heavier than air” craft ten feet off the ground for a few seconds. (The press and public seemed to agree: the Montgolfier brothers’ balloon flights brought crowds of hundreds of thousands, all paying to see the spectacle, while the news media wouldn’t even publish accounts of Kitty Hawk, finding the flights too short and unimpressive.)
They just wanted to see them burn alive at a couple of thousand feet.
The Wright Bros. also purposefully tested their Flyer on the beaches of North Carolina, far away from the public eye, while the Montgolfier Bros. courted publicity and crowds.
Wiki says they tried to publicize their achievement, but were met with indifference.
It was not mentioned yet in this topic, but first man-made object in space was not Sputnik but V-2 Nazi rocket in 1942. Not common knowledge, I guess. And slightly embarrassing too. But OTOH this means it was only 39 years between first airplane flight and first man-made object in space.
It’s an unsettling fact that Nazi’s were very much responsible for the beginnings of our space program and our success with Apollo.
The Soviet’s had Operation Osoaviakhim
Did that orbit, though? A non-orbital, unmanned brush with “space” (which has no clear boundary) strikes me as about as exciting as those early aviation “hops” of a few seconds, a few feet off the ground. And by comparison, how high were the highest weather balloons going at that time?
Of course it didn’t orbit. That would be Sputnik. V2 was designed to came down and do some serious damage.
(Outer)space limits are of course arbitrary and most common accepted Karman line is 100 km (62 miles) high. That was achieved in 1942. Second slightly less arbitrary limit is at about 100 miles high, where at least one full orbit is possible and the sky appears completely black. That was achieved with same rocket in 1944. Weather balloons go up to about 40 - 50 km high. Sputnik was 200 - 900 km high. ISS is about 450 km high.
I know it is blasphemy to compare those facts to Wright brothers or Moonlanding, but they are still hard facts. I went to recheck em on the Wiki. It is all there.
Eh, I already said I wasn’t all that impressed with Kitty Hawk. If I were to pick four milestones, they would be: crossing the Channel in a balloon in the 18th century; Sputnik; Gagarin; Armstrong. If I can add a fifth, then Lindbergh.
BTW, all credit to the Soviets that neither Sputnik nor Gagarin were (AFAIK) preceded by suborbital Soviet efforts to muddy the waters. The American Shepard/Glenn combo is lame.