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The Orb That Changed The Globe

AP photo

This image from a Soviet film documents the start of the Space Race, the launching of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite.

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By KURT LOFT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 30, 2007

Sputnik's Secrets | Sputnik Books

TAMPA - It was to be America's answer to the Soviets - and proof that we could counter their hardest punch.

That proof turned to a poof as the Vanguard TV-3 rocket exploded on the launchpad in Florida, a humiliating blow for a country that had seemed invincible since the end of World War II. Vanguard was the United States' response to the shock of Sputnik, launched 50 years ago this week as a declaration of Soviet superiority in science and technology.

The Cold War gauntlet had been thrown, and the United States could not scramble fast enough to counter with its own space shot. But as the Vanguard rocket disintegrated two months after the historic Russian launch, American hopes turned to fear. The United States lay exposed and vulnerable.

"If you can send a small satellite into space, it gives you the capability of sending up a military payload," Darrell Slider, professor of international affairs and Russian studies at the University of South Florida, said recently of Sputnik's significance.

Sputnik was a pivotal event in the geopolitical evolution of the 20th century. But it also was a military coup: Having successfully tested a thermonuclear device four years earlier, the Soviet Union now had a means of delivering one deep into enemy territory.

The 184-pound Sputnik satellite was merely a symbol - a basketball-size orb equipped with a crude transmitter and batteries. Far more important was its ride atop the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7. The United States had nothing like it.

"The technological achievement of Sputnik was not as important as the psychological impact of a space gap between the United States and Soviets," Slider said. "We were definitely behind."

If Sputnik sent a shock wave across the globe, a second Sputnik a month later got the undivided attention of U.S. military hawks. The Russians not only had two satellites in space, but they also put up the first living creature - a dog named Laika. The capsule was five times heavier than the first, which meant the rocket potentially could deliver five times more firepower.

"We were shocked by Sputnik," said James McDonald, associate professor of science education at Central Michigan University in Illinois. "We were sitting on top of the world. We had no idea we were behind."

But the Russians were deceptive. They could launch a satellite into orbit but not a nuclear warhead at the United States. Engineers had yet to develop a rocket nose cone that could stand the heat of atmospheric re-entry. A bomb wouldn't survive the trip.

No one in the United States knew this, so the Russians played off their fears, using Sputnik as a "peaceful" surrogate for a bomb. The effect was just as alarming, and it made the world take notice, wrote historian Asif A. Siddiqi: "With only a ball of metal, the Soviets had managed to achieve what they were unable to convey with decades of rhetoric."

The Russians knew their little satellite was a priceless weapon of propaganda. As it zipped directly over the United States up to four times a day, it proved lethal to American pride. Millions of awestruck, frightened people listened to its persistent beeps on radios, and many saw what appeared to be a white dot slowly moving across the night sky. (They actually saw Sputnik's 90-foot spent rocket stage, deliberately fitted with mirrors to reflect sunlight.)

But the United States quickly channeled its anxiety and in January 1958 launched Explorer, its first successful satellite. The race was on, and so was a rapidly expanding interest in space technology.

New missile programs led to a reconnaissance satellite system. Millions of dollars in federal aid bolstered science education in schools and universities, and 1958 saw the birth of a civil space agency - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Less than 12 years after Sputnik, Americans walked on the moon.

"We got more specialized about science after Sputnik, and it had a profound change in the way we do science," McDonald said. "Before Sputnik, science was teacher-centered. After Sputnik, it was student-centered."

Sputnik's legacy lives on today, indirectly linked to everything from college loans to cell phones. But what it prevented may be just as important, said Howard McCurdy, professor of science policy at American University in Washington.

"The significance of Sputnik is that the United States and Soviets were not going to go to war," he said. "The way it turned out, the Cold War would be waged largely in symbolic terms. It was almost like knights jousting on the field of battle to preclude armies from actually having to meet."

Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com.

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