## Sputnik and the Origins of the Space



Age

### by Roger D. Launius

- Introduction
- Visions of Technological Success
- American Response to Sputnik
- Birth of NASA

---

### Introduction

Few Americans considered the reception on Friday, 4 October 1957,



at the Soviet Union's Embassy in Washington, DC, to be anything



out of the ordinary. It was the appropriate culmination of a week-long



set of international scientific meetings. It was also, in the



cynical Cold War world of international intrigue between the United



States and the Soviet Union, an opportunity to gather national



security intelligence and engage in petty games of one-upmanship



between the rivals. This one would prove far different. The one-upmanship



continued, but it was far from petty. To a remarkable degree,



the Soviet announcement that evening changed the course of the



Cold War.

Dr. John P. Hagen arrived early at the party; he wanted to talk



to a few Soviet scientists, those he considered personal friends



from long years of association in international scientific organizations,



to learn their true feelings about efforts to launch an artificial



satellite as part of the research effort known as the International



Geophysical Year (IGY). Hagen, a senior scientist with the Naval



Research Laboratory, headed the American effort to launch a satellite



for the IGY, code named Project Vanguard. It was behind schedule



and over budget. Was the same true of the Soviet Union, or would



it go up in 1958 as planned?

Hagen had been through a wringer this last week. Beginning on



Monday, 30 September, the international scientific organization



known as CSAGI (Comité Speciale de l'Année Geophysique



Internationale) had opened a 6-day conference, at the National



Academy of Sciences in Washington, on rocket and satellite research



for the IGY. Scientists from the United States, the Soviet Union,



and five other nations met to discuss their individual plans and



to develop protocols for sharing scientific data and findings.



Hints from the Soviets at the meeting, however, threw the conference



into a tizzy of speculation. Several Soviet officials had intimated



that they could probably launch their scientific satellite within



weeks instead of months, as the public schedule said. Hagen worried



that scientist Sergei M. Poloskov's offhand remark on the conference's



first day that the Soviet Union was "on the eve of



the first artificial earth satellite" was more than boastful,



alliterative rhetoric. What would a surprise Soviet launch mean



for his Vanguard program and for the United States, he wondered?

Hagen did not have long to wait to learn the answer to this question.



The party had gathered in the second floor ballroom at the embassy



when a little before 6:00 p.m. Walter Sullivan, a reporter with



the New York Times who was also attending the reception,



received a frantic telephone call from his Washington bureau chief.



Sullivan learned that the Soviet news agency Tass had just announced



the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first Earth-orbiting



artificial satellite. When he returned to the party Sullivan sought



out Richard Porter, a member of the American IGY committee, and



whispered, "it's up." Porter's ruddy face flushed even



more as he heard this news, although he too suspected Sputnik's



imminent launch, and he glided through the gaggles of scientists,



politicians, journalists, straphangers, and spies in search of



Lloyd Berkner, the official American delegate to CSAGI.

When told the news, Berkner acted with the characteristic charm



of his polished southern gentleman demeanor. Clapping his hands



for attention, he asked for silence. "I wish to make an announcement,"



he declared. "I've just been informed by the New York



Times that a Russian satellite is in orbit at an elevation



of 900 kilometers. I wish to congratulate our Soviet colleagues



on their achievement." On the other side of the ballroom



Hagen's face turned pale. They had beaten the Vanguard satellite



effort into space. Were they really the greatest nation on



Earth, as their leaders boisterously reminded anyone who would



listen? Were they really going to bury us, as Soviet Premier Nikita



Khrushchev announced at the United Nations? What could the United



States do to recover a measure of international respect?

The inner turmoil that Hagen felt on "Sputnik Night,"



as 4-5 October has come to be called, reverberated through the



American public in the days that followed. Two generations after



the event, words do not easily convey the American reaction to



the Soviet satellite. The only appropriate characterization that



begins to capture the mood on 5 October involves the use of the



word hysteria. A collective mental turmoil and soul-searching



followed, as American society thrashed around for the answers



to Hagen's questions. Almost immediately, two phrases entered



the American lexicon to define time, "pre-Sputnik" and



"post-Sputnik." The other phrase that soon replaced



earlier definitions of time was "Space Age." With the



launch of Sputnik 1, the Space Age had been born and the



world would be different ever after.

Sputnik 1, launched on 4 October 1957 from the Soviet Union's



rocket testing facility in the desert near Tyuratam in the Kazakh



Republic, proved a decidedly unspectacular satellite that probably



should not have elicited the horrific reaction it wrought. An



aluminum 22-inch sphere with four spring-loaded whip antennae



trailing, it weighed only 183 pounds and traveled an elliptical



orbit that took it around the Earth every 96 minutes. It carried



a small radio beacon that beeped at regular intervals and could



by means of telemetry verify exact locations on the earth's surface.



Some U.S. cold warriors suggested that this was a way for the



Soviets to obtain targeting information for their ballistic missiles,



but that does not seem to have actually been the case. The satellite



itself fell from orbit three months after launch on 4 January



1958.

At the IGY reception the scientists immediately adjourned to the



Soviet embassy's rooftop to view the heavens. They were not able



to see the satellite with the naked eye. Indeed, Sputnik 1



twice passed within easy detection range of the United States



before anyone even knew of its existence. The next morning at



the IGY conference, the Soviet Union's chief delegate, Anatoli



A. Blagonravov, explained details of the launch and the spacecraft.



The CSAGI conference officially congratulated the Soviets for



their scientific accomplishment. What was not said, but clearly



thought by many Americans in both the scientific and political



communities, however, was that the Soviet Union had staged a tremendous



propaganda coup for the communist system, and that it could now



legitimately claim leadership in a major technological field.



The international image of the Soviet Union was greatly enhanced



overnight.

While President Eisenhower and other leaders of his administration



also congratulated the Soviets and tried to downplay the importance



of the accomplishment, they misjudged the public reaction to the



event. The launch of Sputnik 1 had a "Pearl Harbor"



effect on American public opinion. It was a shock, introducing



the average citizen to the space age in a crisis setting. The



event created an illusion of a technological gap and provided



the impetus for increased spending for aerospace endeavors, technical



and scientific educational programs, and the chartering of new



federal agencies to manage air and space research and development.



Not only had the Soviets been first in orbit, but Sputnik 1



weighed nearly 200 pounds, compared to the intended 3.5 pounds



for the first satellite to be launched in Project Vanguard. In



the Cold War environment of the late 1950s, this disparity of



capability portended menacing implications.

Even before the effects of Sputnik 1 had worn off, the



Soviet Union struck again. On 3 November 1957, less than a month



later, it launched Sputnik 2 carrying a dog, Laika. While



the first satellite had weighed less than 200 pounds, this spacecraft



weighed 1,120 pounds and stayed in orbit for almost 200 days.

### Visions of Technological Success

The concerns of John Hagen and others, raised on Sputnik Night,



exacerbated by later Soviet accomplishments in space flight, enjoyed



a long gestation period. For much of American history, and certainly



throughout the twentieth century, if there is one hallmark of



the American people, it is their enthusiasm for technology and



what it can help them to accomplish. Historian Perry Miller wrote



that the Puritans of New England "flung themselves in the



technological torrent, how they shouted with glee in the midst



of the cataract, and cried to each other as they went headlong



down the chute that here was their destiny" as they used



technology to transform a wilderness into their "City upon



a hill." Since that time the United States has been known



as a nation of technological system builders who could use this



ability to create great machines and the components of their operation,



of wonder.

Perceptive foreigners might be enamored with American political



and social developments, with democracy and pluralism, but they



are more taken with U.S. technology. The United States is not



just the nation of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham



Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but also



of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the Tennessee Valley Authority,



and the Manhattan Project. These people and achievements reinforced



the belief among Americans that their nation was the technological



giant of the world. The Soviet success with Sputnik 1 raised



in a very fundamental way the question of American technological



virtuosity, and questioned American capability in so many other



areas already underway that setbacks in this one was all the more



damaging to the American persona.

### The American Response to Sputnik

The combination of technological and scientific advance, political



competition with the Soviet Union, and changes in popular opinion



about space flight came together in a very specific way in the



1950s to affect public policy in favor of an aggressive space



program. This found tangible expression in 1952 when CSAGI started



planning for an international scientific research effort to study



geophysical phenomena. It decided that 1 July 1957 to 31 December



1958 would be the period of emphasis, in part because of a predicted



expansion of solar activity. In October 1954 at a meeting in Rome,



Italy, the Council adopted another resolution calling for the



launch of artificial satellites during the IGY to help map the



Earth's surface. The Soviet Union immediately announced plans



to orbit an IGY satellite, virtually assuring that the United



States would respond, and this, coupled with the military satellite



program, set both the agenda and the stage for most space efforts



through 1958. The next year the U.S. announced Project Vanguard,



its own IGY scientific satellite program.

During the furor that followed Sputnik 1 and Sputnik



2, many people accused the Eisenhower administration of letting



the Soviet Union best the United States. The Sputnik crisis reinforced



for many people the popular conception that Eisenhower was a smiling



incompetent; it was another instance of a "do-nothing,"



golf-playing president mismanaging events. G. Mennen Williams,



the Democratic governor of Michigan, even wrote a poem about it:

Oh little Sputnik, flying high







With made-in-Moscow beep,







You tell the world it's a Commie sky







and Uncle Sam's asleep.

You say on fairway and on rough







The Kremlin knows it all,







We hope our golfer knows enough







To get us on the ball.







On that same evening of 4 October, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon



B. Johnson, Democrat-Texas, presided over one of his patented



barbecues at the LBJ Ranch in Texas. While at the gathering he



heard the announcement of Sputnik 1's launch on the radio.



He led his guests on a nighttime ramble about the ranch to the



nearby Pedernales River, as he commonly did at such affairs, but



Johnson's mind kept returning to the heavens as he pondered the



Soviet triumph. He recollected, "Now, somehow, in some new



way, the sky seemed almost alien. I also remember the profound



shock of realizing that it might be possible for another nation



to achieve technological superiority over this great country of



ours."

Johnson realized something had to be done about this problem.



He opened hearings by a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services



Committee on 25 November 1957 to review the whole spectrum of



American defense and space programs in the wake of the Sputnik



crisis. This group found serious underfunding and incomprehensible



organization for the conduct of space activities. It blamed the



president and the Republican Party. One of Johnson's aides, George



E. Reedy, summarized the feelings of many Americans: "the



simple fact is that we can no longer consider the Russians to



be behind us in technology. It took them four years to catch up



to our atomic bomb and nine months to catch up to our hydrogen



bomb. Now we are trying to catch up to their satellite."

Without de-emphasizing the legitimacy of Johnson's concern, certainly



he also recognized and exploited the political opportunity of



the Sputnik crisis. The Republicans had been an opposition party



in the early years of the Cold War, and had drummed on the head



of President Harry S. Truman in 1949 for the ouster of Chiang



Chai Shek in Nationalist China and his replacement by a communist



government under Mao Zedong and again in 1950 for the invasion



and near capitulation of South Korea to communist forces. Wisconsin



Republican senator Joseph McCarthy had used these events, as well



as others of both serious and ridiculous nature, to lambaste the



Democrats as soft on communism and essentially of allowing the



"Red Menace" to conquer the world. The Republicans had



turned these issues into political capital that had swept Dwight



D. Eisenhower into the presidency in 1952 along with a host of



Republican members of Congress. Now the shoe was on the other



foot and the possibility existed to defeat the Republicans on



the very same issues that they had used so effectively against



the Democrats, the Cold War rivalry of the Soviet Union.

Seeing this, the Eisenhower administration had to move quickly



to restore confidence at home and prestige abroad. As the first



tangible effort to counter the apparent Soviet leadership in space



technology, the White House announced that the United States would



test launch a Project Vanguard booster on 6 December 1957. The



media was invited to witness the launch in the hope that it could



help restore public confidence, but it was a disaster of the first



order. During the ignition sequence, the rocket rose about three



feet above the platform, shook briefly, and disintegrated in flames.



John Hagen, who had been working feverishly to ready the rocket



for flight, was demoralized. He felt even worse after the next



test. On 5 February 1958, the Vanguard launch vehicle reached



an altitude of four miles and then exploded. Hagen was tearful



at the very public failures and some of his associates thought



his career ended then and there, for he never again held an important



post.

In this crisis the Army, featuring the handsome and charismatic



Wernher von Braun and his rocket team of German immigrants to



the United States after World War II, dusted off an unapproved



plan for the IGY satellite effort, Project Explorer, and flew



it within an amazingly short period of time. After two launch



aborts that made observers nervous that the United States might



never duplicate the Soviet successes in space flight, the Juno



1 booster carrying Explorer 1 lifted off from the Cape



Canaveral, Florida, launch site at 10:55 p.m. on 31 January 1958.



The tracking sites marked the course of the rocket to the upper



reaches of the atmosphere, but they had to wait to learn if orbit



had been achieved.

Wernher von Braun, who was at the Pentagon with other Department



of Defense officials preparing for a press conference, received



news from the Cape that the launch had taken place and calculated



that telemetry from Explorer 1 should be received at the



West Coast tracking stations at precisely 12:41 a.m. But that



time came and went and still he waited for communication from



the satellite. It finally came at 12:49 a.m., when the JPL tracking



station confirmed Explorer 1's pass overhead. The delay



had amounted to nothing more than a little higher orbit than anticipated



and therefore a longer period required to travel the extra mileage.

The spacecraft carried a small instrument, essentially a Geiger



counter to measure radiation encircling the earth, built by James



A. Van Allen, a physicist from the University of Iowa. Data from



this instrument verified the existence of the Earth's magnetic



field and discovered what came to be called the Van Allen Radiation



Belts. These phenomena partially dictate the electrical charges



in the atmosphere and the solar radiation that reaches earth.



Later that day of 1 February 1958, a press conference took place



at the National Academy of Sciences where von Braun, Van Allen,



and JPL director William H. Pickering announced success. The signature



image that appeared in newspapers around the nation the next morning



depicts three smiling men holding a full scale model of Explorer



1 above their heads in triumph of launching the first United



States artificial satellite. Project Vanguard also received additional



funding to accelerate activity during this period, and Vanguard



1 was finally orbited on 17 March 1958, confirming the existence



of the Van Allen belts and measuring their severity.

### The Birth of NASA

Some of the political pressure on the Eisenhower administration



to respond to the Soviet success with Sputnik eased with the launch



of Explorer 1. But not enough to prevent a transformation



in the structure of government. As a direct outgrowth of this



crisis in the winter of 1957-1958, the administration worked with



congressional leaders to draft legislation creating a permanent



federal agency dedicated to exploring space. Numerous proposals



surfaced during that winter, the least acceptable, at least from



Eisenhower's perspective, was a plan to create a Department of



Science and Technology, sponsored by Representative John M. McClellan,



Democrat-Arkansas, and Senator Hubert Humphery, Democrat-Minnesota.



But Eisenhower resisted other less ambitious plans as well.

A turning point came on 4 February 1958 when he finally capitulated



and asked his science advisor, James R. Killian, to convene the



President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) to come up with



a plan for a new space flight organization. Quietly considering



the creation of a new civil space agency for several months, PSAC



worked with staff members from Congress and quickly came forward



with a proposal that placed all non-military efforts relative



to space exploration under a strengthened and renamed National



Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

Established in 1915 to foster aviation progress in the United



States, the NACA had long been a small, loosely-organized, and



elitist organization known for both its technological competence



and its apolitical culture. It had also been moving into space-related



areas of research and engineering during the 1950s, through the



work of a Space Task Group under the leadership of Robert L. Gilruth.



While totally a civilian agency, the NACA also enjoyed a close



working relationship with the military services, helping to solve



research problems associated with aeronautics and also finding



application for them in the civilian sector. Its civilian character;



its recognized excellence in technical activities; and its quiet,



research-focused image all made it an attractive choice. It could



fill the requirements of the constrained job Eisenhower envisioned



without exacerbating Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union.

Eisenhower accepted the PSAC's recommendations and sponsored legislation



to expand the NACA into an agency charged with the broad mission



to "plan, direct, and conduct aeronautical and space activities";



to involve the nation's scientific community in these activities;



and to widely disseminate information about these activities.



An administrator appointed by the president was to head the National



Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). During the summer



of 1958 Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act



and the president signed it into law on 29 July 1958. This ended



the debate over the type of organization to be created and other



plans died a quiet death. The new organization started functioning



on 1 October 1958, less than a year after the launch of Sputnik



1. Its first task was the development of a human space exploration



program. NASA has continued to direct the human space exploration



initiatives of the United States ever since.

Roger D. Launius



---