 The successful orbiting of a small Russian satellite in 1957 not only launched the Space Age, it created a dramatic shift in American politics and culture.
The launching of the world’s first artificial satellite by the former Soviet Union in 1957 was much more than a triumph of technology. Occurring at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviets, it was a competition to demonstrate the superiority of each country’s ideology. In the months and years that followed, the impact of the accomplishment took on powerful dimensions well beyond the technology it exploited.
It was on a Friday evening that the Russian news agency TASS startled the world with this announcement: “On October 4th, 1957, the first artificial Earth satellite was successfully launched by the USSR. The Soviet Union proposes to launch more artificial satellites in the course of the International Geophysical Year. The Sputniks will be larger and a broad range of scientific experiments will be carried on them.”
Although the USSR had given some indications in the preceding months that it would be launching a satellite, most believed this to be Russian propaganda. Now, initial reaction around the world to the TASS announcement reflected uncertainty. The American satellite program called Vanguard was expected to launch within several months. Much of the world looked to America for technological dominance over the Soviet Union.
 The ill-fated Vanguard-1
The director of Project Vanguard, Dr. John P. Hagen, reflecting the popular myth of Soviet incompetence, said that the “Russian moon” could not be compared to Vanguard “which is a much more ‘precise’ scientific instrument.” He was of course speaking out of complete ignorance, as he had no knowledge of what information this first Sputnik was sending back to Earth. He was correct in that Sputnik was simply transmitting the inside temperature and pressure readings of the satellite and was not making any active scientific measurements. Had he known what was waiting in the wings, he might have chosen his words more carefully.
President Dwight Eisenhower’s press secretary, James Hagerty, declared the Russian announcement was no surprise and emphasized that the U.S. was “not in a race with the Soviets.” BothTo the average American and for many in the United States Congress, the significance of Sputnik was initially rather vague. Most had little appreciation of what it took to get a satellite into orbit. Sputnik I was traveling at a speed of almost 18,000 miles per hour in an elliptical orbit that ranged to 558 miles at its farthest point. It circled the earth every 96 minutes.
Even the name ‘Sputnik’ was different. As the Soviets had not given the satellite a formal name it had simply been referred to by the Russian word for a Moon or ‘fellow traveler’. The suffix “nik” would be applied in the months and years to come to create a variety of new words in the American lexicon; the most enduring is the term “beatnik.”
What was most embarrassing was that the United States had been beaten to the record books. This would continue to happen over the next eight years. Americans were angered by the fact that the Eisenhower administration had allowed the Soviets to achieve this success when the United States could have placed a satellite in orbit more than a year earlier than the Soviets.
Most shocking was the weight of Sputnik 1—Nine times heavier than the long anticipated American entry. It was convincing evidence that the Soviet Union did have the power, the guidance, and the ability to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. This was seen as a threat to the very existence of the free world.
The President himself indicated that Sputnik did not raise his anxiety “one iota.” Eisenhower had carefully crafted military research and development funding to avoid creating a large military industrial complex funded by an inflated federal budget. Now, with the Soviet Sputnik, his entire military and economic strategy would start to unravel early in his second term.
 Following the launch of Sputnik I, the Soviet Chief Designer, Sergei Korolev, was asked by Premier Nikita Khrushchev if something even more impressive could be launched to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1917—only a month away. Korolev, who became the defacto architect of the Soviet space program, proposed sending an animal aboard the next Sputnik. The passenger selected was a small female mongrel named Laika, who had been retrieved
from the streets of Moscow. The total mass of the new satellite was 1,118 pounds—50 times heavier than Vanguard. The launch occurred on November 3, 1957.
Laika’s flight appeared to prove that man could survive in space, and excitement reached even higher levels. It was also apparent that a set of progressive milestones represented the ability of a nation to exhibit its scientific and technological prowess. These ‘firsts’ became the focus of the space race. Sputnik II seemed a precursor to a manned flight because of its size.
 The Soviets embellished their accomplishments to enhance the propaganda value. They attempted to capture the imagination of the American public, and perhaps mislead the U.S. military as well, as to the true level of Soviet technology. Speculation in the West that perhaps nuclear powered rockets had been developed was circulated but was without foundation.
If Sputnik I was an affront to the national pride of the United States, the launch of Sputnik II was overwhelming. Now the press and the experts openly talked of missions to the Moon and to Mars, and of manned spaceflight. Suddenly, within a period of 30 days, science fiction had become science-fact. The phenomenon known as 'future-shock' was born.
Initial American efforts were a further embarrassment. The first Vanguard satellite was scheduled for launch on December 6, 1957, just two months after Sputnik 1. A small 3.5 pound, 6-inch diameter, solar powered satellite was used in place of the more expensive 22-pound scientific package. Project officials attempted to downplay the possibility of success on the very first try (something the Soviets had accomplished). In keeping with the unclassified civilian nature of Project Vanguard, the test schedule was publicly announced, and there were hundreds of reporters from dozens of nations around the globe present at Cape Canaveral when the countdown reached zero.
With the whole world waiting in anticipation, TV-3 (Test Vehicle 3) lifted only a few feet before a break in a fuel line caused it to lose thrust and fall back onto the launch pad. A series of violent explosions marked the end of the rocket and America’s hopes for getting into the record books with a satellite in the same year as the Russians. The little satellite was thrown clear of the blazing inferno and continued transmitting its signal until someone recovered it and turned its transmitter off. The satellite may be viewed today in the National Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, complete with bent antennas.
The Soviets, as well as some of America’s socalled friends used the flaming debacle to further humiliate the American effort. The Soviet newspaper Pravda reproduced the front page of the London Daily Herald that included two photos. The first was the tiny 6-inch sphere being enclosed in the nose shroud before the launch. The second showed the explosion. Above the bold Herald headline, which read, “Oh, What A Flopnik!” was Pravda’s notation “Reklama and Deistvitelnost,” that translates to “Publicity and Reality.”
The prestigious New York Times editorialized on November 10, 1957, that “it must be hoped that the National Security Council... will not only be receptive to new ideas, but will take immediate steps to remedy deficiencies and put the US again in a race that is not so much a race for arms or even prestige, but a race for survival.” The final word of the Times editorial, “survival”, seemed to sum up the attitude of many Americans. In a television interview, Hungarian-born Edward Teller, father of the American H-bomb, stated that if the Russians “pass us in technology there is very little doubt who will determine the future of the world.”
Sputnik had a dramatic affect on the American political scene. President Eisenhower, often reflecting the indomitable spirit of the American people, lost much of his influence and trust, not only with the people of the United States but as leader of the free world. Meanwhile, the Democrats were quick to endorse the perception that there was a gap between the missile capabilities of the U.S. and those of the Soviets. The inept handling of American priorities, they claimed, caused this gap, by the Republican administration. They demanded a Congressional investigation of the impact of Sputnik only a few days after its launch.
 The alleged “Missile Gap” cost the Republicans significant losses in the 1958 congressional races. As history was later to reveal, U.S. technology in virtually every critical defense area was ahead of the Soviets at that time. Nevertheless, technological image (like the tail fins on the cars of the time) was paramount in 1957. Sputnik moved the Cold War into a new phase where technology, once the solid base of America’s dominance, became a focal point of ideological supremacy.
The Democratic Party quickly assessed the situation and one front-runner emerged to press home the attack on the Republican Administration. Encouraged by the media riot and selected party members, Lyndon Johnson, then Senate Majority Leader, opened a Senate Inquiry into Satellite and Missile Programs on November 25, 1957. While Johnson would not to be successful in obtaining the 1960 Democratic Presidential Nomination, he was successful in undermining the confidence of the American people in the Republicans’ abilities to lead the country into the new space age.
The presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy in 1960 was closely tied to the perception that the Republicans had failed to keep the American defense posture ahead of the Russians. Despite reasonable proof of America’s superiority, the missile gap became the key issue of the 1960 Presidential campaign that was won by a thin margin of victory by Kennedy, a young liberal Democrat from Massachusetts.
When Eisenhower left office in 1961, his farewell address to the nation included a warning about the undo influence of the military-industrial complex in the United States. He had seen quite clearly how some key players in corporate boardrooms and the military hierarchy had fanned the fires of the missile gap to ensure large and lucrative weapons contracts so that America could catch up with the Russians.
Eisenhower’s failure was his lack of sensitivity to the impact the first Earth satellite had on the perception of technology worldwide. His aversion to the use of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun’s proposal to launch a satellite a year earlier was tied to his first-hand knowledge of the Nazi concentration camps. He was also aware of the manner by which these guest scientists had been allowed to pursue their careers in the United States following WWII.
Sputnik established the Soviet Union as a fullfledged player in world power politics. Overnight, Khrushchev achieved credibility with world leaders, allowing the influence of Communism to move with unprecedented assurance into under-developed and previously non-aligned countries—particularly Cuba.
As concern over Sputnik continued to mount in the West, Soviet leadership began to realize the trump card they held. Because of the closed nature of Soviet Society and the ‘oneness’ of the fledgling Soviet space program and its military capability, secrecy was paramount. With Sputnik’s launch, all contributors were simply referred to as “the chief designer.” This in itself caused a more heightened sense of mystery. Secrecy was all-important to the Soviets during this period. It cloaked their limited technology and hid their failures.
This veil of secrecy that surrounded the early Soviet space program meant that specific plans for future space missions were expressed only in vague generalities, and failures were never mentioned. Details about the spacecraft, specific mission objectives, and even the launching sites, were never divulged.
Sputnik also changed the American education system. Almost before the exhaust plume of the Sputnik launch vehicle could dissipate, Americans began to ask, “Why did we fail?” One of the first sacrificial lambs was the educational system. Had America gone soft on science? Committees from Congress down to the local school board level began a critical review of many aspects of the American educational system and its approach to science.
Several innovative (and unproven) math and science programs were introduced into America’s educational system. This new emphasis on math and science presaged a movement to federally funded programs and a secular approach to education. Many of these new programs emphasized “academic freedom,” which when coupled with changing values, translated into less discipline in the schools. Over the next half century, growing chaos in the classroom and a high school dropout rate of 25 percent would leave America wondering whether it had made appropriate educational adjustments.
Sputnik caused the previously accepted progression of space exploration to be short-circuited. The Sputnik-inspired space race placed the manned Moon landing as a priority. Kennedy was not enthralled by space exploration but he recognized the political implications of the world’s fixation on the subject. He understood the challenge of technical excellence and the human desire to explore the unknown. In his May 1961 speech to Congress he made his intentions clear. “This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
The direction of the space program in the early 1970s was again influenced by Sputnik. When it became obvious that the Soviets had lost the Moon Race (they quietly dropped out when their big rocket failed to be successfully developed) America then moved to launch a large space station—Skylab. After Skylab, the next stage was the reusable space shuttle.
Although there were strong indications that the Shuttle could not be made as safe nor economical as its proponents were claiming, America was resolute that it would never again be out-classed by a foreign power in the technological arena.
The final irony of Sputnik is that the pride the USSR justly felt in its accomplishments in space contributed to the downfall of the nation. By the late 1980s, the Soviet economy had been drained by the 30-year technological competition with the U.S. sparked by its own brilliant satellite. The Soviet Union was dissolved into 15 independent states of which the largest, Russia, has maintained the space program initiative. Their ability to continue the effort was somewhat tenuous during the first years following the collapse of the USSR. However, with some financial help from America, the Russians have become an important partner in the International Space Station. This became critical during the period when the American Space Shuttle was grounded following the Shuttle Columbia disaster.
The Space Race ended when America landed on the Moon in 1969. However, the legacy of Sputnik will forever be ingrained in the history of mankind. Most experts doubt that another Sputnik-like event could reoccur because the various technological, political, and cultural attributes could never be so aligned—but isn’t that thought the very thought process that caught America unaware in October 1957? |
