Planet #387 Track 3 created by DancingBear 14 years ago

The brothers’ passion for radio began in 1949, when Achille Judica-Cordiglia was 16 and Gian was just 10. For them, radio was the Internet of its day, a wonderful invention which fuelled their dreams of explor­ation; they adored cinema too, and filmed everything they did. More than 50 years ago, on 4 October 1957, an event took place that transformed their lives forever. The brothers were sitting at a table in the large attic bedroom where they should have been doing their homework but, as usual, were tinkering with old radio parts. Suddenly, the programme they were listening to was interrupted – the Soviets had just launched Sputnik I , the first satellite to orbit the Earth. “They gave the frequency it was transmitting its beeps on,” recalled Achille, “so we thought: shall we try?”
They didn’t know it, but Turin was perfectly situated to track the Soviet satellites; northern Italy was the only area in Western Europe on Russia’s orbital path. Cont. on next song.