Fifty years ago, the first ’beep-beep’ signal from Sputnik was heard from the heavens on the night of 4 October 1957, marking the beginning of a new era for mankind. The story of Sputnik 1 can be traced back to the aftermath of the Second World War. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became enemies. This period led to the Cold War between two mighties. They competed against each other in many fields like military, technology, and culture as each one wanted to become the most powerful nation. This rivalry represented the fight between different ideologies, or philosophy of the two countries, opposing ideologies of capitalism and communism.
The US had spent the years following the end of the World War-II in persuading the governments of many countries that bordered and were unfriendly to the Soviet Union, to establish air base for their bombers in these countries. The fact that the US was not similarly surrounded by territories on which bombers could be based placed the Soviet Union at a severe tactical disadvantage.
There was only one solution Russians had to find a way to deliver warheads to the US without the use of bombers. The obvious answer was to use ballistic missiles.
In the U.S., scientists and engineers were working on missiles too, but for reasons other than delivering warheads. U.S. was planning to put a small satellite equipped with basic scientific instruments into orbit as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1958. This scientific satellite could then, be followed by much larger satellites carrying military cameras – in other words, spy satellites.
Until 1956, the Soviet government had resisted the idea of launching a satellite because they wanted to focus on missiles. When the news of the US plans to launch a satellite, as part of the IGY reached Moscow, the Central Committee of the Communist Party changed planning. They also started working on the satellite launching, but quite secretly.
The original Soviet satellite – dubbed simply Object D – was planned to be a large device that would carry an array of scientific instruments, the construction of which involved several different institutions. But it was too big and complex. Russian engineers simplified the design down to an 84 kg sphere approximately 60cm in diameter, which contained a radio transmitter that broadcasted only a beep that could be heard and picked up from around the world. Sputnik 1 – which in Russian meant simply “fellow traveller of Earth” – was born. Its function was pure propaganda: proving to the world, the superiority of Soviet’s science and technology and unnerving the West, particularly the United States.
When Sputnik was launched, the entire world was surprised at what the Russian engineers had managed to do and they were also afraid. This event caused fear among nations because it meant that, if the Russians had rockets that were powerful enough to launch satellites, then they had rockets powerful enough to launch atomic bombs. It also meant that the Russians would have power over Space. A month later, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik II. By the end of December, the United States tried to launch its first satellite but it failed, ending up in an explosion.
In 1958, the U.S. successfully launched its first satellite called Explorer I. In addition, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created by Congress to carry out space exploration. In 1959, Soviet Union launched the first probe to hit the moon. It was called Luna 2. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, which is the term used by Russians to mean astronaut, was the first person in space and the first to circle Earth. Less than a month later, Alan Shephard Jr. became the first American astronaut in space. In 1962, John Glen was the first American to orbit Earth in a capsule named Friendship 7. The Soviet Union was considered to be the first in the Space Race and the U.S. ranked the second. In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. In December 1968, the U.S. launched Apollo 8, which was the first human mission to go around the moon. This success gave the U.S. rank number one in the space race. In July, 1969, the U.S. sent astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.
The U.S. having reached the moon and having its astronauts walk on the moon first won the Space Race. When the Cold War ended, the U.S. and Russia started working together on building a space station and collaborating on space projects. Direction and objective of Space age is now changed from where it was born out of a culture of suspicion and fear. Satellites and space probes have dramatically changed our way of living, they have turned the world into a global village where an unprecedented wealth of information is at hand anywhere, anytime. The world has shrunk, and our perception of our planet has changed too. Thanks to Sputnik which boosted the space age.
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