Sputnik I plus fifty years
Exactly fifty years ago today, the complacency of the world- and especially that of the United States- was shattered by the "beep..beep...beep" sound broadcast back to Earth by a tiny metal ball called Sputnik. Its launching proved, first, that the Soviet Union had rockets capable of delivering nuclear warheads to targets in the United States from its own soil (we had no rockets capable of reciprocating the favor), and- in some ways more frightening- that the United States was not, after all, as supreme in the realms of science and technology as we had assumed. In fact, the other superpower demonstrated through the series of space spectaculars of which the orbiting of Sputnik I was only the first example that it had, at least in some ways, left our science and technology in the dust.
Ivan could read and do arithmetic, we were told; Johnny could not. Why were we not putting more emphasis, we asked ourselves, on scientific education? Why were we not more concerned about the weaknesses in our educational system?
Sputnik II and its doomed dog, Laika, was followed by Vostok I and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and subsequently by Vostok II and Gherman Titov- who spent a whole day in orbit. Valentina Terishikova, another Russian, became the first woman in space (no, children; contrary to what many seem today to believe, she preceeded Sally Ride by several decades). Contrary to articles I've actually read in American newspapers, it was not Ed White but Alexi Leonev who was the first man to walk in space. It wasn't until Neil Armstrong set foot on the Sea of Tranquility in July of 1969 that the United States finally regained some of the lost prestige- and self-confidence- that began to melt away on October 4, 1957.
We've become complacent again. China and Japan make no bones about their plans to return to the moon, a world we abandoned after the last of the Apollo flights. The Russians are also making lunar noises. We, too, have joined this second "race for the moon" with our Orion capsule and its Ares launch vehicle, and are planning for our next visit to our nearest neighbor in space in ten years or so.
But the nation has grown apathetic about space. Those other nations have not. I wonder how loud the "beep...beep...beep" will have to be next time to awaken from our slumbers. Will we, after all, live out Lyndon Johnson's nightmare, and some evening in the near future fall asleep by the light of a Russian or a Chinese moon?
Will we have the sense to think through what that would mean, for ourselves and for the world? And I'm not simply talking prestige here. Will be have the presence of mind to realize what it would imply about the wasting of American resolve and know-how, and the growth of those qualities in less happy quarters?
Ivan could read and do arithmetic, we were told; Johnny could not. Why were we not putting more emphasis, we asked ourselves, on scientific education? Why were we not more concerned about the weaknesses in our educational system?
Sputnik II and its doomed dog, Laika, was followed by Vostok I and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and subsequently by Vostok II and Gherman Titov- who spent a whole day in orbit. Valentina Terishikova, another Russian, became the first woman in space (no, children; contrary to what many seem today to believe, she preceeded Sally Ride by several decades). Contrary to articles I've actually read in American newspapers, it was not Ed White but Alexi Leonev who was the first man to walk in space. It wasn't until Neil Armstrong set foot on the Sea of Tranquility in July of 1969 that the United States finally regained some of the lost prestige- and self-confidence- that began to melt away on October 4, 1957.
We've become complacent again. China and Japan make no bones about their plans to return to the moon, a world we abandoned after the last of the Apollo flights. The Russians are also making lunar noises. We, too, have joined this second "race for the moon" with our Orion capsule and its Ares launch vehicle, and are planning for our next visit to our nearest neighbor in space in ten years or so.
But the nation has grown apathetic about space. Those other nations have not. I wonder how loud the "beep...beep...beep" will have to be next time to awaken from our slumbers. Will we, after all, live out Lyndon Johnson's nightmare, and some evening in the near future fall asleep by the light of a Russian or a Chinese moon?
Will we have the sense to think through what that would mean, for ourselves and for the world? And I'm not simply talking prestige here. Will be have the presence of mind to realize what it would imply about the wasting of American resolve and know-how, and the growth of those qualities in less happy quarters?
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