This article was published on the 50th anniversary of Sputnik:
Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age
The other interesting article about what followed next:
The history of solar cells
On October 4 2004, Spaceship One won the US$10 million X-Prize by reaching 100 kilometers in altitude twice in a two-week period with the equivalent of three people on board and with no more than ten percent of the non-fuel weight of the spacecraft replaced between flights. Spaceship One, the first commercial piloted space vehicle, was developed by Scaled Composites, funded by Paul Allen.
There is a number of new technologies other than photo-voltaic modules, which either stem directly from the developments originally implemented in space or were instigated by the space exploration projects and which found or finding implementation in Earth applications:
vacuum UV solar thermal systems, electro-chemical energy storage systems, fuel cells, ultra-light materials, optimal control systems and number of others.
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