A thin plume of orange rising into the Soviet sky on October 4, 1957, carried aloft humankind's first artificial satellite. A 22-inch, 184-pound, beeping sphere, Sputnik ("Fellow Traveler") marked the beginning of a new chapter in the Cold War, where national prestige would be measured by a race in space. An incredible technological achievement in which all of humanity should have taken pride, the flight of Sputnik 1 and its successors (launched through 1961), was transformed into propaganda by the intense political posturing of the Cold War. For the Soviets, a supposedly technically backward nation, Sputnik instilled national pride; for the United States, watching their own puny Vanguard rockets fizzle and blow up on the launch pad, it enhanced fears of the growing Red Menace. While the satellite fell from orbit in January 1958, the word Sputnik became embedded in the American lexicon—symbolizing a period in time in which the United States first realized space exploration would not be a wholly American enterprise.
The International Geophysical Year, a period of worldwide scientific study spanning from July 1957 to December 1958, prompted efforts toward the development of satellites. President DwightEisenhower announced that the United States would orbit a scientific package—Project Vanguard—during the IGY with an anticipated launch date in March 1958. Unlike Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the administration failed to foresee the propaganda coup of placing the first manmade object into space. Sputnik captured headlines around the world. The Soviet News agency TASS boasted how the people of a Socialist society turned dreams into reality.
The Soviet satellite Sputnik I.
Noted atomic weapons pioneer Edward Teller professed, "America has lost a battle more important and greater than Pearl Harbor." Following the revelations of the Rosenberg trial, McCarthy hearings, the fall of mainland China to a Red Mao, conflict in Korea and the Revolt in Hungary, Sputnik only added to a sense of fear toward the Red Menace by Americans. Eisenhower sought to alleviate anxiety by reminding the nation that U.S. satellite efforts had not been conducted as a race with other nations. Not only was Vanguard on schedule, it would make serious contributions to science, while Sputnik did little more than transmit its location. Such reassurances did little to calm the citizenry as a blanket of paranoia and insecurity unfurled across the nation.
The role of the United States as the leader in science and technology was being directly challenged. Before Sputnik, there was a widespread belief by Americans that the Soviets were far behind the United States in such areas, relying on espionage rather than originality. Had such smugness bred mental stagnation among Americans? Senator Styles Bridges made this case declaring, "The time has clearly come to be less concerned with the depth on the new broadloom rug or the height of the tail fin of the car and to be more prepared to shed blood, sweat and tears if this country and the free world are to survive."
A second Sputnik launched in less than a month, on November 3, only served to increase the nation's anxiety. Sputnik II weighed an incredible 1,100 pounds and contained a living passenger, a dog named Laika. Clearly, any booster capable of such feats had to possess a massive thrust capacity. This brought to light fears the Soviets were on the verge of perfecting the first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and with it nuclear warheads that could rain down upon the United States at any given moment.
Attempting to bolster national pride domestically and the United States image abroad, the White House ordered an acceleration of Vanguard's timetable by four months to attempt a December 1957 launch. With the nation's eyes transfixed on Cape Canaveral, the pencil-like Vanguard rose four feet, dropped, and burst into a pyrotechnic display of brilliant orange and white flames. The Soviet United Nations delegation promptly inquired if the United States desired to enlist rocketry aid under their nation's program of technical assistance to backward nations.
The United States did successfully launch the 31-pound Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958. In May, the Soviets launched Sputnik 3, which carried the first space laboratory and used solar energy to power its instruments and transmitters. Sputniks 5 through 10 (four of which carried dogs) were launched 1960-61; these were working models of the spacecraft that carried Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin, the first human passenger, into space in 1961.
Politically, the impact of Sputnik within the United States would be far-reaching. In Washington, critics charged that the president's policy of fiscal responsibility hindered the military's ability to develop ICBMs. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson opened a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee to review the nation's missile and space programs. Eisenhower succumbed to such pressures, increasing defense dollars allocated for missiles. To ensure the peaceful exploration of space, the president called for the creation of a civilian space agency. The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 formally established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Through NASA the nation set forth to combat the Soviets in this new arena of the Cold War called the space race. Because some critics charged the U.S. educational system with not stressing the same fundamentals in science and mathematics as the Soviet system, the National Defense Education Act allocated nearly $1 billion to increase science, mathematics, and foreign languages in elementary, secondary, and collegiate education. American school children needed to be as versed in algebra formulas as they were in baseball batting averages if the United States hoped to surpass Sputnik.
While average Americans found themselves terrified by Sputnik, it became a phenomenon filtering into their everyday lives. Sputnik-watching became a popular evening event. Broadcast in a frequency range that amateur short-wave radio operators could receive, the beeps of Sputnik were as familiar to many families as the "Ballad of Davy Crockett." Toy stores found their shelves lined with Sputnik-inspired toys. David Glover wrote and published the song "Go! Sputnik Boogie." Bartenders concocted Sputnik cocktails—with vodka as a primary component, naturally.
Further Reading:
Clowse, Barbara Barksdale. Brainpower for the Cold War: The Sputnik Crisis and National Defense Education Act of 1958. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1981.
Divine, Robert A. The Sputnik Challenge. New York, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Harford, James. Korolev. New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1997.
Killian, James A. Sputnik, Scientists and Eisenhower: A Memoir of the First Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1977.
McDougall, Walter A. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. New York, Basic Books, 1985.
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