Absolute belter - very well paced. Interesting stuff about US spy satellite program, the MOL, and Russian efforts.
And obviously some tragedy.
Very NASA-focused though (obvs). Was all I could do not to bang on S1 of For All Mankind for about the fifth time :D
![... it is said that he [Babbage] sent the following letter to Alfred, Lord Tennyson about a couplet in "The Vision of Sin":
Every minute dies a man,
Every minute one is born
I need hardly point out to you that this calculation would tend to keep the sum total of the world's population in a state of perpetual equipoise, whereas it is a well-known fact that the said sum total is constantly on the increase. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in the next edition of your excellent poem the erroneous calculation to which I refer should be corrected as follows:
Every minute dies a man,
And one and a sixteenth is born
I may add that the exact figures are 1.167, but something must, of course, be conceded to the laws of metre.
Charles Babbage and his Calculating Engines](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:naz63rywmgaxy2i5kf6yfd5m/bafkreidnjwepbac5hb47tm5jx4jbn5v4iyed6vjgugjsuc4hxr7jdpwote)
