Your Sputnik memories

Posted: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 2:08 PM by Alan Boyle

NASA

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Sputnik was a small
sphere with a big impact.
Click on the image to
relive the start of the
space age in pictures.

Now I know how post-Apollo kids feel. Just as some folks were born a little too late to remember what the moon landings were like as they happened, I was too young (3 years old, if you must know) to remember the initial impact of the Sputnik launch – an event that kicked off the space age 50 years ago this week.

A fresh batch of books and a couple of new movies can give you a sense of what it was like. But the best way to get that sense of Sputnik is to hear from those of you who remember those Cold War chills and thrills. And even if you’re too young to remember Sputnik – or Apollo, for that matter – you can still share your thoughts on the past and future of space exploration.

My first space memory is of peering up into the night sky with my brothers from the backyard on our Iowa farm. We watched for the Echo 1 satellite to pass overhead, and looked forward to that futuristic day when telephone calls and TV signals could be sent routinely via space links.

Even by that time, we looked upon satellite technology as more of an opportunity than a threat – so the initial shock over Sputnik, such as it was, must have passed by that time. Instead, there was a strong push to beef up America's math and science training, and we definitely felt the benefit of that. Every one of the kids in our farm-raised family went on to science-related careers: a physicist, a biologist, a chemist, a physician and a black-sheep science journalist.

In a strange way, we were all the children of Sputnik.

As I said, I don't really remember 1957 all that well. But to get a sense of the shock and awe that people felt back then, you should look for the documentary film "Sputnik Mania," which presents footage of the launch and its aftereffects, as well as contemporary reminiscences.

It's a kick just watching the clips on the project's Web site – including the commentary for the launch footage, read with a Russian accent that would give Cold Warriors nightmares (and spark peals of laughter from Gen-Xers): "The great beast rises slowly from the earth. We are about to create a new planet that we will call Sputnik. It is small, this first satellite – but after it, we will launch others...."

Plenty of publications have come out with online packages about the space age, and I've been linking to some of them over the past few weeks. Here's a sampling:

You could fill a shelf with all the books that have been written about Sputnik and its impact, but several have come out just recently to mark the anniversary: "Red Moon Rising" by Matthew Brzezinski casts the story as a political thriller. "A Ball, a Dog and a Monkey" by Michael D'Antonio retells the tale with lively vignettes. "Epic Rivalry" by Von Hardesty and Gene Eisman recaps the space race as seen from both sides of the Iron Curtain (and features a foreword by Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Russia's Cold War leader).

George Hales / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Five-year-old Linda Chapman stands in
a costume with a Sputnik theme beside
her toy rocket during a 1958 New Year's
Eve celebration.

"In the Shadow of the Moon" and "The Wonder of It All" are two recently released documentaries that pick up the story of the early space effort just after Sputnik. If you're looking for books that trace the post-Sputnik part of the story, you can't do better than the newly published "Live From Cape Canaveral," by NBC News' Jay Barbree (who got into the space journalism game with Sputnik) and Andrew Chaikin's classic work on the Apollo space effort, "A Man on the Moon" (with a new afterword written to mark the Sputnik anniversary).

Lots of coffee-table books trace the space age in pictures, but there are several recent additions worthy of note: "After Sputnik" serves as a virtual tour of highlights from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, guided by curator Martin Collins. "Space 50," by Piers Bizony, is also published by Smithsonian Books but takes a more thematic approach to the milestones of the past 50 years and the road ahead. "America in Space" (with a foreword by alpha moonwalker Neil Armstrong) is NASA's review of its own half-century, which will be officially celebrated next year.

If you need still more suggestions for your reading list, or viewing list, check out my Apollo recommendations from July.

Now it's your turn: If you remember Sputnik, I'd love to hear your tale – maybe it will jog my memory as a 3-year-old. If you've been touched by Sputnik's legacy, I want to hear about that, too. And if you're wondering what all the fuss is about, that's a good perspective to have as well.

Do you have additional suggestions for space-age reading or watching? Send 'em along! Feel free also to reflect on the future of space exploration as well as the past. We'll have more on that part of the story tomorrow.

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Comments

I was a freshman at Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane Washington on October 4, 1957. Most of my interest in science came from science fiction magazines, DC comics and the Flash Gordon early TV serials. My mother hauled me out of bed that October to watch the little pinpoint of light go across the night sky. She pointed to the light and said “that’s your future”. It was fall in the Pacific Northwest, cold at night and all I wanted to do was go back to bed.

I majored in Mathematics/Computer Science and after graduation from Washington State University in 1966 I went to work for NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field California. For the next 38 years I had the great fortune to be part of the Golden Age of Space Exploration. We sent four spacecraft around the Sun, two to Jupiter and Saturn, a Venus orbiter that lasted 14 years and four probes into the atmosphere of Venus.

Sputnik thrust the nation into the “space age” and the nation responded. It was a great career.

Dave Lozier, Pleasanton, California (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 3:09 AM)

My husband and I were in our mid-twenties and we had just moved to Fairbanks, Alaska the year before Sputnik was launched. A group of young scientists working at the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) Geophysical Institute spotted this first lunched Russian satellite floating across the overhead sky. My husband, Albert, worked with these people!! We were all very excited about this event, which took place during the International Geophysical Year, and was followed by the launching of the first U.S. satellite a few months later. We still live in Alaska (near Fairbank) in the small community of Ester.

Shirley Belon, Ester, Alaska (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 3:27 AM)

I was in kindergarten and my folks decided I should be Sputnik for the school's Halloween party. I won first prize! The award itself was a shiny new silver dollar. I regret to this day that I spent it, I have no idea on what.

Josh Wallace, Montreal, Canada (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 3:34 AM)

As a highschool freshman at St. John's Military School and a member of the radio club, we all crouded around the SW receiver to listen to the beep, beep as Sputnik went over head.

During the Gemini flights, some friends and I built a VHF receiver and listened to the downlink radio as the spacecraft passed over head.

I managed to graduate with a degree in Physics/Math while working as an aircraft electronics technicion.

As luck would have it, I ended up at the Manned Spacecraft Center (Johnson Spacecraft Center) working on the Apollo Luner Module Landing and Redezvous software programs. This time I was in the control center back-back room during the Apollo 11 landing. My association with Apollo spaned Apollo 7 through Apollo 13.

Very exciting times.

Edward Brann, Pasco, WA (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 4:00 AM)

I don't know that I was so much shook up that Russia had put Sputnik up as I was watching T.V. and the Rockets being blown up on the launch pad. At that time also we started sending chimps up to check their reaction in space. There was a joke going around at that time that the Astronaut's were complaining about not being sent up and wanted to go up also. So before launch one of the astronaut's was handed a folder of orders and instructed to open it after getting into orbit. After the chimp and astronaut obtained orbit the astronaut read his orders. It said, "Feed the chimp".

Frank D. Woodruff Monett, Missouri (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 5:20 AM)

How quickly time passes. I recall sitting in my bed room tuning my Hammarlund HQ129X radio to a frequency around 20MHz to listen to the "chirp" sound from Sputnik. I recorded the sounds from the radio onto a Weber wire recorder. Don't know what happened to the spools of wire or the recorder... most likely the junk pile many years ago. As a teenager I didn't think in terms of political impact but it sure was cool to pickup signal from space.

George, Elkhart,IN (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 6:11 AM)

Back in the 50's my dad managed a drive-in theater in upstate NY. If Sputnik when over during a movie, he stopped the film & announced over the speakers what was happening. Everyone would get out of their cars and stare at the sky. The film would resume when Sputnik passed.

J.A.B. West Milford, NJ (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 6:53 AM)

I remember hearing it on a red plastic transistor radio about the size of a 1 inch thick paperback book. I remember exactly where I was standing on our porch at the time it came on the news. I was eight years old and totally horrified that the Russians could do this. I had visions of the Russians orbiting thousands of atomic bombs and then telling them all to fall on us at once. It was also very embarassing to feel second to the Russians. It was one of the worst days of my young life.

Bruce, NH (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 7:26 AM)

I was 6 years old in 1957. I remember the ballyhoo about Sputnik and about how America must prove it is the best by getting to the moon first. I remember watching in fascination as Echo went by overhead. I lived near Los Angeles. I remember the big push for boys (but not girls) to achieve in math and science. I studied them anyway.

I remember duck-and cover. I remember vaguely understanding why it happened. I remember no one EVER telling us it would be ineffective at ground zero.

Years later, at age 12, I discovered Robert A. Heinlein's juvenile science fiction stories. They became my outlet for wanting to be every kond of scientist from A to Z.

Later still, I ventured into wrting myself - Star Trek fan fiction.

Today I am the Reviews Coordinator for a major science fiction website.

Yes, Sputnik was the initial cause of my lifelong interest in science and technology.

Midge Baker (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 8:43 AM)

I was 10 in 1957 and remeber standing outside on cool clear October nights to watch Sputnick pass overhead. My Dad, who was a consumate "futurist," had been passionate about the prospects of space travel and exploration, was very excited and felt vindicated that his predictions to which others had scoffed at for years were finally being realized. From that point on I fervently followed the progress of our space program and that of our Russian counterparts.

Eric Thatcher, St. Peters, MO (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:02 AM)

I was 10 years old when sputnik was launched. I remember going out into our back your under a crisp October night and watching a shiny dot in the sky with my dad. To this day this is a time spend with my dad I will alway treasure,

Rick Randall Kalamazoo Mi (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:34 AM)

Like almost every child, I remember my father taking me outside and pointing to a speeding dot of light high in the dark clear night. "Your world will never be the same," is what my father said to me. At some point near that same time he woke me late at night to show me the northern lights and pointed to the beauty of all that God created. My father is in his eighties now, I am approaching 60. How can I begin to express how different, how wonderful, how terrible, and how small our world became because of that pinpoint of light so long ago. Wishing all of you and all the world the wonder, safety, and love, I feel whenever I think of that long ago night, in the backwater darkness that was South Carolina in that nearly forgotten time.

smb, greenville, south carolina (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 11:01 AM)

I was a 12 yr old boy in Beverly, NJ and watched the first Sputnik pass overhead with my parents that weekend. And I have been watching the night sky ever since. I followed the SPACE RACE daily and, 25 years after we landed on the moon, we could read just how close the USSR came to beating us with their N-1. The benefits of the Space Program are so far reaching it can't be addressed here! Yet, it's all taken for granted today. While the American public seemes to have no serious interest in Space, we should learn from the "surprise" of Sputnik back in 1957....watch the rapid advances of China and Japan.
>>104 Years of Flight - We have come so far!<<

Ned Hood, Southern NJ (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 11:12 AM)

I was 7 in Rochester NY. Every space activity from that point on held my rapt attention. The Soviet Union was demonstrating their intellectual prowess. My grandmother had gone there 4 years ealier on a travel tour, and wasn't as shocked.

9 years later, as a junior in high school, new BSCS Biology and PSSC Physics courseware was rolled out, and we lapped it up. The people who rolled up their sleeves after Sputnik to modernize science curriculum deserve tremendous credit. I went into science, and when it became practical in the 80s, computer science.

Now, I'm 57, and gearing up to "give back" to the next generation, whose jolt of motivation should be the race to cheap robotics. The nation first able to automate menial jobs like picking fruit with flex robotics will have unquestionable mojo, and economic leverage.

I'm developing a new way of doing geometry where students write software (Java) to represent geometric objects, and write algorithms to solve problems. My initial high school students found it very powerful, for instance, learning how to program motor coordination in a robot arm, and how a GPS receiver solves for its location. It's called Algorithmic Geometry.

I'm currently reaching out to 9-12 math educators, and philanthropists interested in modernizing geometry curriculum in the US. The impact of Sputnik lives on!

Pierre Bierre (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 12:12 PM)

As a young child at that time, my parents had these Christmas decorations for the tree that were spiky, star-burst-like balls, made out of plastic. They were shiny and in metallic colors.

My cousins came to visit at Christmas, and you know how young children like to play and joke around with odd-sounding words. Anyway, we ended up calling those Christmas decorations "Sputniks" and having a grand time laughing and playing with the Russian word - over several years of holidays.

I still have a "Sputnik" or two that have survived all these years in my ornament collection, and each Christmas warmly remember the family fun we had teasing and joking about the Sputniks.

I remember telling my own children as I hung the decorations recently that they were "Sputniks," and of course they had no idea what I was talking about. They had never even heard the word.

I just sent them a link to your story. Thanks for the memories!

Franny, South Jersey (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 12:48 PM)

I was only five at the time... but I remember being very scared when I heard about the Sputnik launch. Probably from what I heard from my parents.

HarryD Lehigh Valley, PA (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 1:52 PM)

I am, sadly, too young to have witnessed Sputnik or Apollo, but I've still been fascinated with them my whole life. It's interesting to hear about the ways that different people reacted to the news. Here's a Q&A with Sir Arthur C. Clarke where he talks about his reaction: http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5584

Josh, New York, New York (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 2:50 PM)

Here is a different take on Sputnik.

I had just graduated, top of the class, at the Ordnance Guided Missile School at Redstone Arsenal in the summer of 1955 in Huntsville, AL. The Army's Chief of Ordnance assigned me to the Research & Development Division at Redstone. Colonel Miles B. Chatfield commanded the R&D Division and assigned me to be the Project Manager of the Orbiter, the Army's effort to launch the first artificial satellite. Von Braun's GMDD (Guided Missile Development Division) was to be our prime contractor.

Having just completed the 44-week Nike Course at the Ordnance Guided Missile School, I took some leave to bring my family back to see our parents in Denver. Upon return to Redstone, I learned that the Secretary of Defense, Charles Wilson, had cancelled the Army Orbiter project and given it to the Navy.

There was a lot of angst at that time about the roles and missions of the different branches of the service. The Army had a strong program of R&D going, In the Surface to Surface Branch of R&D under Major Dan Breedon were the Honest John, the Little John was in the wings. the Dart missile, the Lacross system, the Corporal Type II was deployed and Type III was in R&D, the Sergeant system was just being authorized. (The Jet Propulsion Laboratories were an Army Lab at tht time and were the designers of the Corporal and Sergeant systems). In the Surface to Air Branch under Major Rudy Axelson was the Nike B (later named Nike Hercules), the Nike Zues (an anti-missile missile) another that I don't remember and then through the GMDD, the Redstone system was being deployed and the GMDD staff were working on the Jupiter, exotic propellants, accurate gyroscopes, re-entry ablative covers for warheads, etc.

The Air Force, had two Intercontental Range Ballistic missile systems, the Titan, here in Denver, and the Atlas. They also had two Intermediate Range Ballistic missiles, the Thor and Centaur (as I recall) in development.

The Navy had an anti-submarine missile system and the Sparrow aircraft missile in R&D, and were feeling very much left out. So, we understood, this was the reason why the Secretary of Defense gave them the project, which they named the Vanguard. The Navy selected the Glen L. Martin Company, a well deserving and experienced contractor of theirs, to design and build the Vanguard.

Martin built a very fine and complex missile, but it was beyond the state of relibility of the components of the time. The Vanguards crashed and burned, crashed and burned. An executive at Martin, and college fraternity brother, later assured me that it did eventually fly.

Meanwhile, back at Redstone Arsenal, Von Braun's GMDD kept working on the Jupiters, getting some funding from other projects in the Army's R&D programs. Then Major General Bruce Medaris was assigned to head up a new organization, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, which subsumed von Braun's GMDD. General Medaris out-ranked Brigider General Toftoy who had put the German scientists from Penemunde together and brought them to the USA, first to White Sands Proving Ground then later moving them to Redstone. ABMA had a lot more clout and now Von Braun's group had the money to proceed.

They built a Jupiter C, a Redstone missile with a spinning second and third stage of scaled-down solid propellant Sergeant engines (buile by Thiokol at Redstone) and launched this in September 20th 1956. The last stage could have gone into orbit and beat the Soviets by over a year, but we understood that General Medaris felt that it was not the politically correct thing to do, to upstage the Navy. So the last stage engine was filled with sand. The launch went well, the dummy last stage impacted in the South Atlantic, about 3550 miles from Canaveral.

I had left the Army, resigned my commission, and was sitting in traffic on Pershing Road in Downtown Chicago on my way to work. It was a cold and drizzling day. Stopped on my right side was a truckload of pigs going to slaughter, when one pig urinated out through the slats of the truck and all over the hood and windshield of my car. There was nothing I could do but turn on the windshield wipers, as I sat there, listening to Sputnik, with tears streaming down my face - knowing that it didn't have to be this way, we could have beat them by over a year.

Chuck Schloss (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 3:14 PM)

I still had 2 1/2 months to go until I was out of my mother's womb! I'm post Sputnik!

Bryan Price, Jacksonville, FL (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 3:16 PM)

I was only 3 in 1957. I don't remember the day or the events. What I remember is a short burst of noise on a tape recorder. My Dad, a ham radio operator and early electronics technician/enthusiast, found the signal being sent out by Sputnik, and recorded it.

My young mind couldn't grasp the significance of the noise. It was not unlike lots of other noises coming out of my Dad's radios. I knew he was sure excited, though.

The local paper ran an article, and I think the tape may have been played on the local broadcast radiostations.

I went on to be more and more aware of the space program. I watched each mission, grieved for the failures, and cheered for the successes. Always in the back of my mind, though, is that short burst of noise. I feel pretty proud to have been witness to the birth of new technology!

Sue Langdon - Albuquerque, New Mexico (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 4:02 PM)

I've always wondered if the Soviet leaders even knew what Korelev was planning... Could Korelev just been sneaky and say he needed a tracking probe for ICBM research while all along knowing he would launch a space race? Sometimes leaders are reluctant to do such tests if they fall outside of the range of simple MIRV delivery... not sure... just wonder how? what? when? where? and for what reasons? such decisions were made. If Korelev hadn't died during minor surgery, they may have very well beaten us to the moon as well. They certainly had the rocket to do it but not the plumbing master to make it work for more than a few minutes. IT DID FLY... just not far enough. Anyway...

Chris Eldridge (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 4:52 PM)

I was 11 years old when the Sputnik was launched. I remember waiting in my back yard with my parents and neighbors to see the satellite move across the sky in the early night. I saw it several times as a slow moving, slowly blinking star. It took about 30 seconds to fly completely across the sky. We stood there in awe. There were some comments about the Russians spying on us and how they had bombs in the satellite. My grandmother said that they were reaching too close to God and he was going to slap them down. But mostly, I remember the fascination and the feeling: "Wow!".

Sometimes my father and I would run inside and tune our shortwave radio to the frequency the satellite was using and we'd listen to the steady "Beep..Beep...Beep" as it went overhead.

I was too young to understand the politics very much but I remember everyone in school talking about the Sputnik the day after it was launched. It was very hard to accept the fact that Russia had beaten us into space.

Bill Norr, Flemington, NJ. (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 5:18 PM)

I was seven years old when Sputnik was launched. I recall the adults being concerned about it. Myself and the other children did not have a clear understanding of what was happening except that the Russians has put something in the sky and it bothered the grown ups.
My Dad worked for Mcdonnell Douglas and some of their sub contractors as a machinist. It was not uncommon for him and his friends to discuss the various aircraft and space craft being built. Within a few years I was very interested in the space program and followed it like some people follow baseball. Chuck Yeager, Allan Shephard and John Glenn were my heroes.
I remember going out at night and looking for satelites. As I recall I expected them to have plently of detail not a tiny moving star. The first Satelite I recall seeing was the Echo balloon that the US put in orbit.

Don Christie (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 5:27 PM)

I was 8, living in North Dakota (ground zero because of all the missle sites located there) and remember all the "duck and cover" drills we went through. My Dad, a colonel in SAC, was put on alert immediatly and things were very tense.
For me and my brother, 7, it was a wonder to behold. We set up our telescope so we could watch it but remember being disapointed because Sputnik traveled too fast to focus on. Still, we were out every night for nearly a week watching it move silently across the sky.
I also remember the intoduction of "New Math" that we suddenly were forced to learn. It didn't make any sense then and still doesn't today. Like "No child Left Behind", it was governments inept attempt at education.
Two good things that were a direct result of Sputnik - the blue, sugar coated bubble gum and the song Telestar - hearing it takes me back a long ways!

Steve, Rochester,MN (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 5:28 PM)

I was six when Sputnik was launched. I can remember my parents were really excited. But the main thing I remember about the launch was that someone dropped a puppy off in front of our house the same night. My parents took her in and named her Sputnik! She was our family dog until she past away twelve years later.

Pat Worden, Gurnee, IL (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 5:31 PM)

I was five years old when the news of Sputnik broke. My parents were worried that the Russians beat us. They worried that the Russians were more technologically advanced than the US. What else will the Russians come up with to beat the US. Then when Sputnik broke up and fell to earth a piece of it actually landed in my home town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. It made a hole in the asphalt pavement on North 8th street in front of the Rahr Museum in Manitowoc. A pole with a plaque was erected marking the spot where a piece of Sputnik landed. The pole and plaque are gone with the spot paved over. Sputnik made a big impact on a 5 year old growing up on the shores of Lake Michigan. Sputnik was one of the first times that I could recall the other guy winning and causing worry among my family. The plaque never let us forget that fact for many years.

Tom Teteak, Plymouth, Wisconsin (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 6:13 PM)

That evening I went to Miss Comer's dance school for well-to-do white people in Westport CT. I was a week away from turning 12. There was some talk about Sputnik, but most of all I remember another boy telling me I needed to get some chewing gum because my breath smelled.

Tom, Flagstaff, AZ (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 7:20 PM)

One morning, Oct. 17th or the 25th '57 I believe, a friend and I were north bound on Hwy. 2 out of Spokane, Wa. to go hunting. The sun was just rising out of the East and here comes this shining thing South bound right above us. We were listing to a Spokane radio station just after it passed over and they were telling their listening audience to go outside to get a look at Spudnik going over in just a few seconds. I remember that day well.

Carl Staib, Spokane,Wa. (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 8:03 PM)

I was 9 years old when Sputnik was launched. We were either visiting my grandparents when the launch was announced, or visited them within days of the event. I remember seeing the story about it on the news, including that strange pinging sound, at my grandparent's house. Later that evening, my family sat around a table playing cards while discussing it. It all sounded very ominous, but I didn't really understand much of the conversation. Later, I was required to go to bed in a bedroom at the back of the house, far away from the rest of the family. It was a room that had windows all around, almost like a screened in porch. My family stayed up playing cards until the wee hours as was their habit. I soon became so scared that this thing called Sputnik could see me through the windows and was going to come and get me, that I pulled the covers over my head and tried to be as still as I could so Sputnik might not see me. That was about as scared as I remember ever being. I'll never forget exactly where I was and what I was doing when Sputnik first cruised the heavens, looking for children to steal and take back to it's den for a midnight snack. That pinging sound still brings back the chills.

Hunter Scott (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 8:22 PM)

Sputnik was a shock. No doubt about it. We smug Americans thought we were no. 1 in everything, but this notion was dispelled by a beep-beep raining down from the sky on October 4, 1957.

I was 11 and very much interested in science and all the advancing technology of the day that science fiction could muster. I dutifully watched Mr. Wizard. I always read about jet speed records and how good our planes would be against those hapless Russians.

Then came Sputnik. Out went the confidence and in came questions about how the USA could have fallen so far behind in this key technology. The Russians not only had rockets, but big rockets that could obviously deliver their big weapons anywhere on earth.

We were told that our space program was not military like the Russians and that our scientists would shortly use a rocket that looked like a rifle bullet to launch a satellite.

That day came in early December. Anticipation was high. Every TV channel had its cameras on this sleek design standing proudly on its launch pad. It had to work. The Russians had followed their initial triumph with a huge satellite containing a dog. The countdown came down to zero, the Vanguard rocket ignited, rose a few feet and fell back into a fireball of American failure. This was just two months after the Russians had launched Sputnik and we were not only behind, but total failures for all the world to witness. Would anything in our technical arsenal work? Would we eventially have to concede domination to the evil Soviet empire?

Within a month, I was selected to participate in a science program at a local university. They let kids loose in the chemistry labs to create instant rocket scientists. They would fill the technical gap where Mr. Wizard had obviously failed.

Soon I was reading every scientific article and making amateur rockets. My friends and I each had a lab in our basements, with no idea what we were doing. All we wanted to do was make something blow up or go up, because that was where the action was. We were lucky to have survived.

Eventially, the US launched a satellite with the help of a jury-rigged Jupiter C rocket put together by Werner von Baun using spare military rocket parts. The small satellite actually did some science in orbit, so we took heart that at least our small electronics was superior.

But the Russians continued to thumb their noses at the US efforts. They launched probes to the moon and beyond. They eventually launched a man into space and retrieved him. Why couldn't we catch up?

The Apollo program finally showed that we could do something the Russians couldn't do--spend more money than they could ever muster to go to the moon. We bought our way out of technical inferiority in space.

We cheered when the moon landing happened, but it was not until 12 years after Sputnik--years of thinking the Russians would keep beating us in every space event.

Those years of uncertaintly kept me into the field of science. While I would have loved to be a rocket scientist, that never happened. I do more mundane technical work and still dream of the roar of rocket engines and the knowledge that comes from probes fired into our strange universe.

That is the legacy of Sputnik. That we continue to look for the things that excite us in the sky. That our young people want to be a part of the adventure. That we feel a pride in accomplishing tasks that add to the reservoir of human knowledge. And that we do it before those Russians.

I still look up into the October sky and remember when it all started. Beep, beep, beep!

Jim Klang, Wheaton, IL (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 8:40 PM)

I was eleven. My father took me outside late at night to see the Sputnik satellite go over. We saw it! But we also saw a string of lights snaking through the sky. My Dad was a radar man in WWII, he stared and stared and then told me we had just seen a UFO. He was NOT given to such statements; the next day there was a story in the paper about the sighting of the unexplained string of lights. I'll never forget it!

Mary Gill, Sacramento, CA (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 8:41 PM)

I was born on Oct 7, 1957 and my parents had the foresight to save and give to me the Life Magazine issued on October 7, 1957 highlighting the Sputnik. Whata year!

JoAnne Roberts, Mercerville, NJ (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 8:57 PM)

I remember this event well.The rush was on for me and my friends to pick up the radio signal sputnik was sending.I had a tabletop shortwave receiver I used.

Jerry Giddens,Sylacauga,Al (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 9:05 PM)

The town of Winona Minnesota on the mighty Mississippi River, kept us informed of danger by the use of air raid sirens. My big brother Jay was in civil defense training when I was in grade school. I did not see the Sputnik but recall it being the talk of the town still 10 yrs. after it launched, when I was 10. In 1965 the air raid sirens went off and our school thought "the Russians are bombing us" and we all were let out of class to go "straight home." No one knowing what really was happening. It turned out to be the biggest flood the town had with the Mississippi busting through dikes and into the midst of the city! Sputnik set off a major mind set of fear that the greatest county in the world really could be invaded. Then came 9-11 when no one was looking.

I've always been interested in space because of all the media on the 'race for space' since Sputnik's launch to the present. My most memorable moment was hearing "this is one giant leap for mankind" as America's Neil Armstrong set his foot down on the moon.

Lori Allison Billings Montana (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:07 PM)

I had just started 1st grade two months before October 1957. I remember standing outside with my dad on what seemed like an unusually warm October night in Fairbury, Illinois, hoping to spot Sputnik as it transited the sky. We saw something moving majestically against the stars, but whether or not it was Sputnik or its booster rocket we never found out for sure. The space race and the arms race were both on. That Christmas I received a bunch of books about space by Willy Ley, a map of the solar system, and a toy model of an ICBM rocket launcher. By the spring of my 1st grade year, my elementary school had received a whole bunch of new scientific equipment - mostly laboratory glassware and chemicals - which would be put into use starting with the 4th grade. I couldn't get to 4th grade fast enough! By the spring of my second grade year, I remember having a conversation about the Russian space-dog Laika with a cute little red-haired girl who conned me into sharing with her my ride on the mechanical pony outside the supermarket, by letting her go first. By the time our conversation was over so was the ride and I was out a nickel and still hadn't ridden the pony. But she was awfully pretty - and smart, too - so I didn't mind too much! By the spring of my 3rd grade year, we were starting to practice air raid drills in my elementary school, and seeing prefab bomb-shelters for sale at the larger hardware stores.

Joseph Andorfer (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:07 PM)

My mother grew up in the Soviet Union. There was not much to eat then and families lived in cramped quarters, so she never really learned how to cook. One day at our home in Madison, Wisconsin, in the 1970s, she tried her hand at making an appetizer for party guests that involved cubes of cheese. She covered some circular shape with foil which she then pierced with cheese-holding toothpicks. Beholding her creation, she suddenly exclaimed: "Sputnik!" (Russian pronounciation, spootnik).

Irina Hynes, Brookfield, Illinois (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 11:27 PM)

I was 7 years old at the time of Sputnik I remember the hold neighbor coming old at night and looking for in the sky at night and went they found it going overhead. It was the amazement of the parent that got me. I did not understand all that was going on put I new it was a major event.

Jerry Schutte, Cincinnati Ohio (Sent Friday, October 05, 2007 1:19 PM)

Reports of the launch of Sputnick ("little potato") was received in Canada with mild fanfare. As an outside party observing both the USA and Russia we had little doubt about the general and specific superiority of the Americans. Although I must admit we found "duck and cover" to be somewhat a useless exercise, and very few backyard bomb shelters were built up here.

Sputnick's publicity did however overwhelm the announcement of the Avro Arrow's successful flight at the same time in that October. But Canada's success in designing and building the jet-powered fighter aircraft (expected to keep the Russian hordes on the other side of the North Pole sufficiently intimidated to make them want to stay home) was deemed to be "too expensive" for little Canada to flaunt (think of a Lear jet long before there were Lear jets) and the entire project was canceled by the then Government.

The Avro engineers and scientists picked up and left for the States and NASA and helped to put a man on the moon within a few years. The remnants of the Canadian force which stayed here continued to work and if you look carefully you sometimes see the Canadarm on the space station, working as shoulder, elbow and hand extension of the astronauts there. It will be joined there by the latest development, a "wrist" component wandering along the arm to work where needed.

And all because of a 'little potato.'

Des Emery, St. Thomas, ON, Canada (Sent Sunday, October 07, 2007 12:45 AM)

I was in the first grade, when Sputnik was launched. I was already interested in astronomy and my father told me that mankind had opened the door to the greatest adventure of mankind. We watched the third stage booster, that launched the satellite, pass overhead, several nights. I was a science nut, from then on, closely following the American and Russian space programs. I am still an amateur astronomer and I have read volumes of material and done endless research into the American and Russian space programs. James Oberg has given me many insights into the manned space program. His books on the Russian space program are excellent. I have relatives that work for NASA. Sad to say, America, and our government, does not have the interest in manned space exploration, any longer. I believe that when the space shuttles are retired, funding for the Orion and Ares manned space programs, that will replace the Shuttle, will disappear. That sense of adventure and the enormous rewards, of a manned mission to Mars, or beyond, is no longer in America. I see unmanned robots as the means of future space exploration. I do hope that our education system, in America, will improve as it is no longer capable of giving us the abilities to achieve space science, on the scale that we had during the times of Apollo. The future is bleak, where manned space exploration is concerned. Space exploration, by robotic spacecraft, will be the future. If I could make decisions, as to our future in space, I would strongly fund future manned exploration efforts. May we all hope that funding for space sciences, especially manned space exploration, continue at a strong pace.

David Barden, Birmingham, AL (Sent Monday, October 08, 2007 9:31 AM)

I was coming back from a mountain climb on the island of Saint Lucia in the British West Indies when i learned about the Sputnik satellite in orbit. We had "lost" one of our team members on the climb down the mountain and went back to the missile tracking station near Vieux Fort, where i lived and worked to see about getting a search party organized.

You can read about this and see one of the Sputnik anniversary covers (envelopes) I issued in 1977 for this event, postmarked Russia Ohio, by going to mywebpage
(clicking on my name below)

Joe Frasketi Jr., SW Florida USA (Sent Wednesday, October 10, 2007 3:43 PM)

I was sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge of the USS Chevalier DDR-805 moored at the dock in Melbourne Australia when I saw a star moving up and across the sky at about a 35 degree angle. I immediately threw the girl from Tasmania off my lap, grabbed the large binoculars permantly attached to the railing of the bridge deck and saw what looked like a chrome-plated basketball traveling though the sky. We in the crypto gang had been warned to be watching for something but nobody seemed to know what it would be. "This is it!", I thought. I raced down to the radio shack thinking that, if it was broadcasting, it had to be an ultrahigh frequency to penatrate the ionsophere and would probably be on a bank we (the Navy) were not using or hadn't used in a long time. We had several old UHF receivers in Radio Central which had seen better days. I fired up two of them and began to search through the five bands that each had. On the second band I heard a sound that I had never heard before and could never have imagined: four beeps in lowering tones repeated over and over. I immediately patched this into a tape recorder then into the ship PA system after which I called the Officer of the Deck telling him to get the "Old Man" back to the ship ASAP. He did not, to my surprise, question why probably sensing the urgency in my voice. The captain (Healy, I think) arrived mad as a wet hen and stormed up to the radio shack and burst in the door demanding to know what was going on. When he heard what I had to say and listened to the sounds (which, by then had changed to four more but different beeps), he immediately ordered a couriour to fly the tape up to the Naval base in Pearl Harbor which I am told was sent to London's Jodrell Bank for analysis. It turned out to be the Sputnik and we got a commendation (a "Well Done") from Admiril Ulysess S. Grant, Commander of the Pacific Seventh Fleet. I never did tell the Admiral about the girl from Tasmania whom I had totally forgotten about in the excitement.

Charles P. Johnston (Sent Friday, December 21, 2007 4:08 PM)

I'm not a boy born in 1950,60's etc.I was born in 1993.So I'm quite young.I wish to say that Sputnik is fantastic.I know the space race and i'm interested in space science.I manitain a website too on Space science.My father was born in 1958 and he often tells me about the excitements of Appollo .I wish If i could have some friends interested in Space science.

Jishnu Nambissan,Chelembra,Kerala,India (Sent Saturday, February 23, 2008 7:14 PM)

Sputnik was launched while I was a sophmore at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University). My previous technology high point had been about eight years before Sputnik, when electricity finally arrived at our Iowa farm. After helping Dad with the wiring, we no longer had to use a kerosene lantern to read after the sun had set. And low batteries no longer meant we kids would miss hearing Jack Benny or the Lone Ranger.

A man-made satellite was obviously a major technology advance over wiring a house and cow barn. When my Iowa State physics professor, Dr. Percy Carr, announced his intention to photograph Sputnik as it pased overhead I immediately volunteered to assist. The spot of light drifting across the night sky was fascinating, but more than matched by the amazing sounds coming from his short wave radio. Something he referred to casually as "WWV" was apparently transmitting precise time marks!

We were of course taking long time exposures to show the flight path of Sputnik across the night sky. By holding the lens cap briefly over the camera lens at specific WWV time marks, our photos showed gaps at those points in the flight path. Our photos could then be used with photos being collected in other parts of Iowa that night to compute the orbit of Sputnik.

After 33 years at Boeing in Seattle that included work on numerous NASA contracts, I still treasure my copies of our Sputnik photos and my memories of those hours spent with Dr. Carr under a star-filled Iowa sky.

Rich Farrell, Renton, Washington (Sent Tuesday, September 09, 2008 2:15 AM)

I just found this site and find it very interesting.
My experience...I was a member of an Army Security Agency unit in Oct., 1957. We were at Wildwood Station, Alaska and our assignment was to monitor the Russian Space Agency. Our trick was working when Sputnik #1 was launched. We didn't know what was going on until next day...just knew something exciting was happening.
In November a group of us was sent to the island of Shemya, Alaska and was working when #2 was launched.
Hard to believe that has been 52 years ago...!!!

Clarence Tudor....Mortons Gap, KY 42440 (Sent Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:32 AM)

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