Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

Far OUt: the SpaCe age IN aMerICaN CUltUre
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the more eisenhower tried to reassure the nation about the implications of
Sputnik,however,the more his critics could portray him as inept and out of touch
with Cold War dangers. 9 Ike’s popularity declined as an avalanche of scientifc
reports, newspaper editorials, and political speeches warned that the United States
was losing its military lead because of Moscow’s presumed technical superiority.
the democrats especially smelled blood in the water, and most republican
politicians joined in the alarm over Sputnik lest they become its victims. 10
as the Soviet’s 184-pound sphere circled the earth, Sputnik’s beeps,
which people could hear on most home radios, appeared to dramatize Soviet
technological expertise and military power. appearances, of course, comprised
a signifcant part of foreign policy calculations during the Cold War era, as
capitalist and communist worlds vied for international prestige and waged a
global contest over hearts and minds in developing nations. 11
the war of appearances turned even worse for americans. On November
3, 1957, the fortieth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, Moscow launched
a second Sputnik. Weighing more than 1000 pounds, this satellite carried
scientifc instruments and temporary life-support equipment for a dog named
laika, the frst mammal to orbit earth. In early december, the U.S. answer to
Soviet missilery, a Vanguard tV-3 rocket, lifted a full four feet of its Florida
launch pad before toppling back to earth. In response to the Sputniks, media
wags quipped, the U.S. ofered “Flopnik” and “Stayputnik.” Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev, recognizing his opportunity, gleefully ridiculed U.S.
missile capability.
the New York Times saw the United States as entering a “race for survival”
against the U.S.S.r., and the democratic Speaker of the house, John McCormick
of Massachusetts, claimed that the country faced “virtual extinction” if it failed
to achieve dominance of outer space. Senator John F. Kennedy also endorsed a
crash program to advance U.S. capabilities in space. and lyndon B. Johnson, the
democratic majority leader in the Senate and head of the defense preparedness
Subcommittee, judged Sputnik to be a disaster comparable to pearl harbor.
he opened hearings into why the Soviets had beaten the United States into
9.
david Callahan and Fred I. greenstein, “the reluctant racer: eisenhower and U.S. Space
policy,” in Spacefight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership, eds. roger d. launius and howard
e. McCurdy (Urbana, Il: University of Illinois press, 1997). divine, The Sputnik Challenge also
emphasizes eisenhower’s reluctance to join an expensive space race.
10 . McCurdy, Space, pp. 62-63; divine, The Sputnik Challenge, pp. 74-78.
11. Important works on the space race, in addition to those already cited, include rip Bulkeley, The
Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy: A Critique of the Historiography (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University press, 1991), alan J. levine, The Missile and Space Race (Westport, Ct:
praeger, 1994), Matthew Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited
the Space Age (New York, NY: times Books, 2007), and Von hardesty, Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story
of the Soviet and American Space Race (New York, NY: National geographic, 2007).