That simple beep-beep-beep was the sound that started the space race. It was heard
for the first time 60 years ago when on October 4th 1957 the Soviet Union
launched Sputnik 1 into low-earth orbit it was only a metal ball 22 inches or
about 56 centimeters in diameter with four antennas sticking out of it but it
had an impact far greater than its size in fact it changed the course of human
history. The idea of a satellite was first raised in an engineering memo
written by Mikhail Tikhonravov in 1954 whilst his former boss for Soviet space
programs chief Sergey Korolyov worked on what would become the world's
first ICBM the R-7 Tikhonravov thought that if a missile could
carry a nuclear warhead through space on its journey from one side of the
planet to the other it could launch a satellite into orbit too. Korolyov
immediately saw the potential and pitched the idea to a Minister of
Defence Dmitriy Ustinov and on January 30th 1956 a governmental resolution was
issued calling for the production of an unoriented satellite known as "Object D"
weighing in between 1,000 and 1,400 kilograms and containing scientific
research equipment. However it wasn't just the Soviets who were looking to
place a satellite into space. In the U.S. in 1955 American president Dwight D
Eisenhower pledged that his country would launch a satellite during the
International Geophysical Year which was to run from July 1957 to December 1958.
Shortly after the start of the Soviet project test firings of the R-7 rocket
showed that it was not generating as much thrust as was first thought and
whilst this was OK for a warhead delivery it might not be enough to
launch for 1000 kilogram plus Object D into orbit. In order to launch quickly
they had no option but to build a much cut-down version called the "Prosteyshiy Sputnik" or simple satellite
the simple metal sphere that we know of today
weighing in at just 83Kg. Inside the spherical heat shield was a sphere
pressurized with nitrogen containing two transmitters three silver zinc batteries
and a ventilation fan. Sputnik was launched on October 4th 1957 from the
Tyuratam rocket range now known as the Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh
republic. It was delivered into an elliptical orbit with a maximum height
of 900 kilometers above the earth and began orbiting every 96.2 minutes
traveling at a speed of 29,0000 kilometers an hour
and transmitting on two radio frequencies 20.005Mhz and
40.002Mhz. Boris Chertok, academic and one of the senior designers
of a later Yuri Gagarin flight stated that there was a common misconception
that the shiny sphere of Sputnik was just about visible to the naked eye and
was easily seen through binoculars but in fact what people were seeing was the
second stage of the R-7 rocket which was in the same orbit Sputnik itself was
just too small to be seen. In fact it had already flown over the United States
twice undetected before the Soviet news agency TASS confirmed its existence to
the world. Everyone with the right radio equipment could hear sputnik's beeps and
although that's all the satellite actually did scientists were able to
measure the distortion of a signal allowing them to make the first accurate
measurements of the upper atmospheres density and gather early information
about the Earth's ionosphere. But the satellite was much more than a bleeping
sphere, the impact was instant and global an event known as the "Sputnik moment".
In the United States the response was described as hysterical. Americans had
relaxed in the belief that they were technologically more advanced than their
Cold War enemies behind the Iron Curtain, suddenly they believed they weren't. They
believed that their country was falling behind the Soviet Union and that
superior weaponry was about to be put into space and that they might not stand
any chance of catching up. People recalled the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
in 1965 when he told those outside his country "We will bury you" he continually
claimed that he hadn't meant it in the way it was reported but worried
Americans weren't listening as the beeps from his spacecraft drowned out sensible
thought. Eisenhower tried to placate his nation by saying the following "So far as
for satellite itself is concerned that does not raise my apprehensions not one
iota" but he had to accept that the U.S. needed to face three stark facts that
the USSR had dominance in space, that the United States prestige and leadership
were at stake and that the Soviets could potentially achieve a superior military
capability. He made those points whilst American scientists grappled with the
fact that even though Sputnik was less than 1/10 the mass of Object D it was
still over eight times more massive and the satellite they had been planning to
send up. The very public televised failure of America's first satellite
attempt in December of 1957 of a Vanguard TV 3 only heightened the
public's perception that the US was lagging well behind the Soviets.
Boris chertok said at a time the Soviets had about a three-year lead on the U.S.
something that showed up again and again until the time of the first spacewalk by
Alexei Leonov in 1965 by which time the American space program would overtake
the Soviets with Gemini and Apollo. Eisenhower asked his countrymen to react
with “resourcefulness and vigour.” His administration led the charge by moving
to shut down the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and replacing
it with NASA on October the 1st 1958. NASA opened with an annual budget the
equivalent in today's money of $730 million dollars
compared to $18 billion dollars today and at its peak in 1965 the
equivalent of $44 billion dollars, over four percent of the U.S. federal budget.
The US government also passed the National Defense Education Act into law
encouraging young people to study physics and mathematics
so that they could contribute to the space race and as a response to the concerns
that Soviet children were out learning the American ones.
Sputnik itself continued beeping until the batteries died 22 days after its
launch it remained in orbit until January 4th 1958 and burned up on
re-entry after completing 1440 orbits and traveling 70 million kilometers.
By that time the space race was already at full pelt
although the USA didn't successfully put a vehicle into orbit until January 31st
1958 when the Explorer one mission succeeded. By the end of a decade the
score stood at 10 successful flights from the USA and 6 successes for the
USSR and while the Americans reported 16 failures. The Soviets never announced
anything unless it was a successful mission they also scored another first
when Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to make contact with the moon.
Sputnik changed everything along with launching the space race it opened up a
new chapter in the Cold War and whilst it gave the people of Earth new things
to worry about it also gave us new things to wonder about a new direction
to go exploring in. That wonder along with the politics and propaganda led
President John F Kennedy to make the "We choose to go to the moon" speech on
September 12 1962 and for Neil Armstrong to set foot on the moon on July 20th
1969 just seven years later. Without the "Sputnik shock" many experts believe that
it might have taken much longer for men from any country to reach from walk on
the moon and whilst the Cold War continued for another 34 years filling
superpower arsenals with hundreds of ICBMs and presenting the terror of the
Star Wars space weapons program the "Sputnik moment" and its international
reaction also led to the acceleration of technological developments and inspire a
generation of engineers and scientists. Space exploration global communications
plus the analysis of our planet's past present and future all benefited
from little beeps. The US space programs most recent top-line aims after send
humans to visit an asteroid by 2025 and to put a human on Mars during the 2030s.
Whether those aims will be achieved of course remains to be seen but they are
the latest echo of the beeps heard around the world from a little metal
sphere 60 years ago. So thanks for watching and don't forget we have the
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