The 50th Anniversary of Sputnik

On the evening of Oct. 4, 1957, Americans already fearful of their Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, were shocked by radio and television reports of a sudden announcement by Tass, the Soviet news agency. Soviet scientists had used a rocket to launch the first artificial satellite into orbit, 560 miles above the Earth’s surface. Sputnik 1 — in Russian, the name means "satellite" or "traveling companion" — was the size of a basketball but weighed a hefty 183 pounds, thanks to the heavy batteries required to operate its simple equipment, which included two radio transmitters. From the New York Times Web site, here is a recording of Sputnik’s radio broadcast, which could be picked up by ham radio operators in the U.S. As the BBC reported, Soviet scientist A. A. Blagonravov described Sputnik as "the simplest kind of baby moon."

Nevertheless, as Sputnik passed over the U.S. every 96 minutes, it had a gigantic scientific and political impact. As Time reported in its Oct. 21, 1957, issue, the University of Alaska scientists who were the first Americans to observe Sputnik marveled at the manmade celestial object that was "like a star and brighter than Jupiter." Members of Congress and military leaders, in contrast, were dismayed by the Soviets’ demonstration of their rocketry prowess, since the same technology used to propel Sputnik into space presumably could be used to attack the United States with a nuclear warhead. Beyond that, the Soviets’ indisputable lead in space flight was a humbling blow to American pride. U.S. Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, D-WA, proclaimed "a week of shame and danger," while Sen. Stuart Symington, D-MO, called for Congress to convene a special session. At an emergency briefing on Oct. 8, a military adviser told President Dwight Eisenhower that the U.S. Army could launch a similar payload into space in four months. (Here’s a copy of the secret memo on the meeting, since declassified). Publicly, Eisenhower tried to reassure Americans that Soviet missiles did not pose a threat, but he sounded less than convincing. "I don't know anything about their accuracy, and until you know something about their accuracy, you know nothing at all about their usefulness in warfare," he admitted.

The Soviets followed up the Sputnik 1 triumph by launching a second, larger satellite into space. Sputnik 2 contained a passenger, a dog named Laika, who was the first living Earth creature to venture into the cosmos. (Unfortunately for Laika, the Soviets made no provision for her to return, and she died in space.)

Meanwhile, U.S. embarrassment turned to frustration in December 1957, when a Vanguard missile carrying a test satellite exploded and burned two seconds after liftoff at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Here’s the New York Times account of the mishap. It wasn’t until February 1958 that a U.S. Army Jupiter-C rocket successfully launched the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit. While it wasn’t the first satellite in space, Explorer proved to be a scientific success. Along with a second U.S. satellite, Explorer 3, that was launched the following month, it gathered data that revealed the existence of the Van Allen radiation belt that surrounds our planet.

The Soviets stayed ahead of the U.S. in the space race for several years. In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. A month later, he was followed by U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard. Nevertheless, that May, President John F. Kennedy brashly proclaimed that the U.S. would land men on the moon within a decade. Here’s a video clip of his speech. American technological ingenuity and superior financial resources ultimately won out, and seven years and $150 billion later, U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first to set foot in the Sea of Tranquility. Here’s a recording of his immortal words.

Though the Americans and the Soviets were longtime rivals in space, in 1975 they agreed to a historic joint mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and the Russian Federation have been among the nations cooperating in the development of the International Space Station.