Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite of our planet, was put into orbit the same day I was born. These days it is more fashionable to talk about Oumuamua, the rare comet that crossed our solar system.

The artifact, as Ricardo Artola recalls in The Space Race (Alianza, 2019), was a burnished aluminum sphere of 84 kilos. Americans watched him pass through their sky (every 96 minutes) with the natural apprehension of those tense times.