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—— ON THIS DAY ——
OCTOBER 4, 1957
Tyuratam (Baikonur), Kazakhstan, Soviet Union
69 years ago
Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, from the test range later known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Late in the evening of October 4, 1957, a modified R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile lifted off from a secret test range on the Kazakh steppe. A few minutes later it released a polished aluminum sphere, fifty-eight centimeters across and weighing about eighty-four kilograms, into orbit around the Earth. Four whip antennas trailed behind it. Inside were batteries and a radio transmitter that sent out a steady beep on two shortwave frequencies. The Soviet news agency announced the launch the next day, calling the object simply sputnik, the Russian word for a traveling companion.
Sputnik circled the planet roughly every ninety-six minutes. Amateur radio operators could pick up its signal, and people around the world went outside at dusk hoping to spot a moving point of light (what most of them saw was the much larger spent rocket stage following the same path). The transmitter ran for three weeks until the batteries died. The satellite itself burned up on reentry in early January 1958.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
The Space Race, the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in spaceflight, which Sputnik began and the Apollo Moon landings effectively ended.
The man behind the launch was Sergei Korolev, the chief designer of the Soviet rocket program, whose identity was a state secret until after his death. Korolev had survived Stalin's labor camps to build the R-7, and he persuaded the Kremlin to let him use it for a satellite before the Americans, who had announced their own plans, could get there first. A more elaborate scientific satellite was running late, so his team built the simplest possible object in about a month.
The American reaction bordered on panic. The scientific value of Sputnik was modest, but the rocket that launched it could plainly deliver a nuclear warhead to any city in the United States. A month later the Soviets orbited Sputnik 2 carrying the dog Laika. In December the first American attempt, a Vanguard rocket, rose about four feet and exploded on live television. The United States finally reached orbit with Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958.
Washington's response reshaped American science. In 1958 Congress created NASA, the Pentagon set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency to prevent future technological surprises, and the National Defense Education Act poured federal money into science, mathematics, and language teaching. Within four years a Soviet cosmonaut had orbited the Earth, and within twelve, Americans had walked on the Moon. Today thousands of working satellites carry the world's communications, navigation, and weather forecasting. All of it traces back to one beeping sphere.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
Sputnik opened the Space Age. It was the first object human beings placed in orbit, and it proved that spaceflight was an engineering problem that could be solved. Everything from crewed missions to satellite navigation followed.
It transformed the Cold War. The launch demonstrated that the Soviet Union possessed missiles capable of reaching North America, ending the American sense of geographic safety and accelerating the arms race.
It remade American science and education. NASA, the agency now called DARPA, and a generation of federally funded scientists and engineers were all direct products of the shock. The early internet grew out of the same research agency.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union put a small metal ball into orbit, and for three weeks it beeped its way around the planet. The sound frightened one superpower, thrilled the other, and started a race that reached the Moon within twelve years.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“Now, somehow, in some new way, the sky seemed almost alien.”
— Lyndon B. Johnson, recalling the night he learned of Sputnik, in his memoir The Vantage Point
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about Sputnik 1, Sergei Korolev, the American reaction, the creation of NASA, and the beginning of the space race?
