On October 4, 1957, at 10:58 PM Moscow time, the world forever changed. From a launch pad in Tyuratam, Russia, a Soviet R-7 rocket blasted off towards space. Aboard was a small, 23-inch diameter aluminum satellite with four 9.5 meter antennae. Its soul purpose was to transmit the "beep.... beep.... beep...." that we know of all too well today. The satellite was called Sputnik, or by the Russian translation, "Fellow Traveler." (Graham)

Sputnik was a massive blow to the US Space Program, both scientifically, politically, and emotionally. The democratic United States had been upstaged by the eastern communist Soviets. It would be 5 months before the US would successfully launch a satellite into orbit, that coming on January 31, 1958 - the date which a Jupiter-C rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida with the Explorer 1 satellite aboard. (Neal, 60)

After World War II there was a fierce competition between the United States and the Soviet...