On October 4, 1957, the 84-kg Object PS 1, as the Soviet Union called it - or Sputnik 1, as everyone else called it - rode a modified R-7 ICBM into space and into global headlines.
What happened next? Many momentous things.
R7 and Sputnik display at Museum of Flight (Matt Bille)
The Sputnik program's creator was Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, leader of Soviet long-range missile and space programs. Despite having done an undeserved and almost fatal stretch in a gulag for "sabotage," he was a Russian patriot who, like his counterpart Wernher von Braun (of whom he once wistfully said, "We should be friends"), had one eye on missiles and one on spaceflight. (No one outside the USSR knew who Korolev was.)
Korolev had an explicit commission to beat the United States to the first satellite. He was spurred on by a belief that a US Jupiter-C reentry vehicle test flight was a failed satellite attempt. When the initial satellite design, "Object D," was initially too big and unreliable to launch in 1957, Korolev's right-hand man, Mikhail Tikhonravov, suggested they instead fly the simplest possible satellite. The lead designer of the satellite itself was Nikolai Kutyrkin. The launch was a success, and Sputnik 1's famous "beep" - described by LIFE magazine as "a cricket with a cold" - was heard worldwide. (Object D later become Sputnik 3.)
As Korolev congratulated his comrades, saying, "The road to the stars is now open!"
Radio operators around the world tuned in and millions scanned the night sky. The satellite was too small to be seen with the naked eye, but the core of the R-7 booster had followed Sputnik into orbit and was spotted easily. This visual proof magnified the satellite’s impact.
Reports that Sputnik caused panic in Western nations were exaggerated. However, influential American media outlets, most notably LIFE and US News and World Report, published alarmist critiques, which succeeded in raising the public’s concern.
Sputnik 1 sent shock waves through U.S. and allied governments. Missile experts correctly deduced the launcher was a powerful ICBM. The Soviet Union had announced the first flight of Korolev’s ICBM a few months earlier, but U.S. intelligence had been unsure of the announcement's validity. Now there was no doubt.
If the little sphere caused consternation among governments, it also excited scientists who knew that the Earth satellite concept, long a theoretical possibility, had at last been proven feasible. British author and space visionary Arthur C. Clarke recalled that it was "...a complete shock, but I realized it would change the world."
The international impact of Sputnik was unexpected even by the Soviet leaders. At first, the official newspaper Pravda gave the launch only a brief mention. Only after it became clear Sputnik had caused a global sensation did the satellite earn banner headlines. A CIA assessment stated that Sputnik had immediately increased Soviet scientific and military prestige among many peoples some governments. Soviet diplomats and politicians made the most of the resulting admiration.
President Eisenhower reassured the public that the U.S. satellite program had not been conducted as a race against other nations and Sputnik raised no new security concerns. In private, he called his advisers on the carpet for an explanation of why the "backward" USSR had gone first. Ike refused demands from some Congressional and media alarmists for an all-out crash program in space, calling only for $1 billion in extra funding for American missile programs.
A consequence the Soviets didn't foresee was the effect of Sputnik on international law. Before Sputnik, the right of transit through space above a nation’s territory was an unsettled question. Donald Quarles, Eisenhower’s Deputy Secretary of Defense, pointed out that the Soviets had done the United States an unintentional favor by establishing the concept of freedom of international space. Not one government protested the overflight of Sputnik. "Freedom of space” was eventually enshrined by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
Sputnik's success gave Korolev vast resources to devote to his dreams of spaceflight. The price imposed was the need to keep the successes coming to maintain leadership in this new field. Korolev responded with new satellites, lunar probes, and in 1961 the launch of the first human into orbit.
Sputnik also galvanized the lagging U.S. space program. With the official U.S. satellite program, the Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, still struggling, the Army missile team headed by Wernher von Braun was given approval to launch a satellite. After a frantic effort, Explorer 1 was orbited in January 1958. The Pentagon created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to lead its space programs and the post of Director, Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E). Civilian space programs, Eisenhower decided, should belong to a new agency. On 1 October 1958 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) came into existence. It began pursuing numerous space endeavors, including science and applications satellites and its own human-in-space program. Sputnik’s launch was the beginning of the journey to the Moon.
Want to know more? Read The First Space Race: Launching the World's First Satellites
Matt Bille is a writer, historian, and naturalist living in Colorado Springs. He can be reached at mattsciwriter@protonmail.com. Website: www.mattbilleauthor.com.
Read Matt's Latest book, Of Books and Beasts: A Cryptozoologist's Library. This unique reference offers a friendly skeptic's 400 reviews of books on cryptozoology, zoology, related sciences, and cryptozoological fiction. Your search for the world's new and undiscovered animals begins here!
