50 Dollars First Man-made Satellite

The Marshall Islands entered the commemorative coin market aggressively in the late 1980s, issuing a flood of .999 silver rounds through a licensing arrangement that critics at the time argued had more to do with generating seigniorage revenue than with any numismatic tradition. Sputnik 1 launched October 4, 1957 — the Soviet achievement that shocked Washington into creating NASA the following year.