Continuing reactions

Many serious thinkers in the United States (including, among others, von Braun and his circle of close associates) understood the value of propaganda that would be attached to leadership in space. That was shared by many of the scientists and workers in the Soviet Union (including Korolev and his associates). However, the political leaders in both countries did not appear to have recognized its value before the shock of the Sputnik 1 launch. Nikita Khrushchev had been reluctant to authorize the first Sputnik launch, and was in bed at the time of the launch. He realized its importance immediately following the energized worldwide public reaction, and very quickly ordered the launch of Sputnik 2. Eisenhower, however, downplayed the importance of the event for the first several weeks and was spurred to action only following the Sputnik 2 launch in early November.

From the time of President Eisenhower’s first announcement in 1955 that the United States would launch an Earth satellite, until the launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, those of us who were actual participants in the new space endeavor were developing our apparatus in an open manner. We believed that all would benefit if details of individual national programs were known to everyone, so that the resulting opportunities for cooperation would add value to the overall enterprise. The U. S. leadership was especially anxious to keep the satellite program separated from the classified Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile and ICBM developments to encourage the emergence of an “open skies” policy.

To help emphasize that openness, the U. S. satellite program was set up as a civilian project, divorced from high-priority military programs and fully open to the public. To further underscore that separation, official responsibility for managing the satellite program was placed in the hands of the fully nonmilitary U. S. National Academy of Sciences.

The Soviet satellite program, on the other hand, was tied directly to long-range strategic missile development and was shielded from outside exposure by tight military secrecy. From the time of their initial brief public announcement that they would launch a satellite as a part of the Soviet contribution to the IGY, relatively few details of the Soviets’ work were available to the Western world.

It has sometimes been suggested that the satellite was launched at that exact moment so the announcement could be made at the Washington conference and, perhaps, even at that very cocktail party, in order to maximize its impact. I am convinced that launch activities in the USSR were not that precisely orchestrated, and that the Soviet delegates were not that prescient. The Soviet delegates at the reception appeared not to know before the rest of us that the launch had actually occurred. I believe that their project personnel back home had simply rushed to make the launch as

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

early as they possibly could, and that it just happened to occur at that opportune moment.

On Saturday evening, I received a telephone call from my dad in Iowa City. He was recording our interview for his Monday morning radio program. We covered some of the details of the Friday announcement, reactions by the cocktail party’s attendees, and technical features of the satellite.

The national and international press had a field day. To sample the tone of the articles, the front page of the early edition of the Washington Post and Times Herald on 5 October screamed:

REDS LAUNCH EARTH SATELLITE
—Sphere Up 560 Miles, Russia Says.

Their final edition later that day expanded the coverage with its headline:

Space Satellite Launched by Russians, Circling Earth at 18,000 Miles an Hour;
Is Tracked Near Washington by Navy

Some of the articles that nearly filled page three of the 5 October edition of the

Washington Daily News were headed:

Reds Launch Satellite; Moon Next, They Say
—To the Planets by 1965

U. S. Caught Flat Footed

Reactions All Around the World
—Russian Embassy Opens up for Newsmen

How to Tune In

How to Look for It

Extensive news coverage continued during the following days and weeks. Some articles plainly reflected the U. S. surprise, shock, and disappointment in having failed to reach space first. The Baltimore News on 9 October started a series of articles to describe what happened and why. The introduction to that series read:

Most free world experts concede that in being the first nation to launch a man-made satellite into outer space, Soviet Russia won a tremendous scientific victory and an incalculable advantage over the United States in prestige and propaganda. Along with the realization of Russia’s triumph, the question is being asked: “Why was the U. S. beaten?”25

Criticism of our own program swelled, with banners such as “Navy Blocked Satel­lite, Generals Say.” Even more significant was the growing concern by many, both

CHAPTER 6 • SPUTNIK! 175

inside the federal government and among the public, that Soviet technology might be substantially ahead of ours. This was no small thing, considering the intensity of the cold war at that time. The grave concern was that the Soviets had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances well before us, and that that gave them a tremendous strategic advantage.

That situation was further reinforced by the orbiting less than a month later of a much larger satellite—Sputnik 2. Launched on 3 November 1957, it carried the dog Laika as a passenger! The U. S. reaction, by that time bordering on the paranoid, spurred weapons development and the general advance of technology as no other event was likely to have done. The apprehension extended beyond the military and technological arenas into everyday lives. Even school curricula were changed as a result to put increased emphasis on science and technology education. Homer Hickam, in his book October Sky, wrote sometime later of the period following the Sputniks’ launches:

Clutching books and papers, we slogged from class to class, our arms wrapped around the material. The same thing was happening in high schools in every state. Sputnik was launched in the fall of 1957. In the fall of 1958, it felt to the high school students of the United States as if the country was launching us in reply.26