The article leads you to believe there haven't been that many space launches. That got me to thinking about just however many rockets we're fired into the ionosphere.
We know the Germans fired close to 3000 V-2 missiles against the Allies. For the next 10-12 years, the US and Soviets fired captured V-2s and clones for both military and research purposes. If they fired just 50 each for 12 years, that's another 1200. Then came Sputnik/satellites and manned flight. In the meantime the militaries of both nations were testing missiles, as well.
I have no way to even guess how many rockets have been fired by space, commercial, and military organizations the world over since 1957. I'd bet that number would be at least three times what it had been in the 12 previous years, or about 12000 lauches of military, spacy agency, and commercial rockets, for a total of over 15000 launches since WW2.