On October 4, 1957 the world's first artificial satellite was launched bringing the Soviet Union into the space age. Many Americans were shocked upon finding out about Sputnik 1, which stands for satellite in Russian, as they had hoped that the US would be the first to successfully launch a satellite. This thinking led to many Americans feeling that the military was technologically behind. With the dislike of communist ever growing the simple sight of their satellite over American soil felt like they were in constant danger making the tensions of the cold war worse. With Sputnik 1 many americans felt that the Soviet Union could potentially fire their missiles anywhere in the US at any major city
As a result of the successful launch of Sputnik the arms race was intensified as the US attempted to catch up and surpass the soviet union but launches ended in failure. The Soviet Union would quickly go on to launch two more satellites, one carrying the dog now famously known as Laika. Their success of their first satellite allowed for Khrushchev to boast about the soviet unions' technological superiority and about their huge amount of missiles. The fear of the US being behind in both technology and weapons lead to sending the spy plane over Russia to find out their amount of missiles. In 1958, 4 months after the launch of Sputnik 1, the US was successful in launching the Explorer 1 satellite which was responded with another satellite being launched by the soviets.
Source: Sputnik
Great job illustrating the American perspective and their insecurities at having been repeatedly bested by the Soviet Union. I would also like to add that the launching of Sputnik lead to the National Defense Education Act, which allowed the federal government to fund education and favored fields such as mathematics and science. Because the United States thought they were behind, they looked to shore up their educational system to eventually regain a technological advantage.
ReplyDeleteFor more information on the National Defense Education Act:
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Sputnik_Spurs_Passage_of_National_Defense_Education_Act.htm
Nice post! Even though we covered this briefly in class, it was really helpful how you went more in-depth about the American reaction to Sputnik and Laika and how it spurred them to begin on their own technological advances. If you're interested, I found a link further discussing Sputnik's impact on America: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/sputnik-impact-on-america.html
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