Sputnik crisis
Encyclopedia
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
that began on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
launched Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 ) was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth's orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1s success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space...
, the first artificial Earth satellite.
The United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
had held itself to be the world leader in space technology
Space technology
Space technology is technology that is related to entering, and retrieving objects or life forms from space."Every day" technologies such as weather forecasting, remote sensing, GPS systems, satellite television, and some long distance communications systems critically rely on space infrastructure...
and missile development. However, the appearance of Sputnik I and the failure of the first two U.S. launch attempts
Project Vanguard
Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory , which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida....
rattled the American public. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
called the shock the “Sputnik Crisis” because of the looming threat of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, America was in a state of fear from the Soviet Union. Once the Soviets started to launch satellites into orbit, even a payload harmless to the U.S., the concern increased. If the USSR could launch a satellite, it could also launch a nuclear warhead able to travel intercontinental distances.
Less than a year after the Sputnik launch, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act
National Defense Education Act
The National Defense Education Act , signed into law on September 2, 1958, provided funding to United States education institutions at all levels. The act authorized funding for four years, increasing funding per year: for example, funding increased on eight program titles from 183 million dollars...
(NDEA). The act was a four-year program that poured billions of dollars into the U.S. education system. In 1953 the government spent $153 million, colleges took $10 million of that funding; however, by 1960 the combined funding grew almost sixfold because of the NDEA.
US Rep. Clare Boothe Luce
Clare Boothe Luce
Clare Boothe Luce was an American playwright, editor, journalist, ambassador, socialite and U.S. Congresswoman, representing the state of Connecticut.-Early life:...
referred to Sputnik's beeps as "an intercontinental outer-space raspberry to a decade of American pretensions that the American way of life was a gilt-edged guarantee of our national superiority."
After the initial public shock, the Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
began, leading to the first human launched into space
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
, Project Apollo and the first manned moon landing
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...
in 1969.
US response
The Sputnik crisis spurred a series of U.S. initiatives, many initiated by the Department of DefenseUnited States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
:
- Within two days, calculation of the Sputnik orbit (joint work by UIUCUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignThe University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
Astronomy Dept. and Digital Computer LabDonald B. GilliesDonald Bruce Gillies was a Canadian mathematician and computer scientist, known for his work in game theory, computer design, and minicomputer programming environments.- Education :...
). - Increased emphasis on the Navy's existing Project VanguardProject VanguardProject Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory , which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida....
to launch an American satellite into orbit, and a revival of the Army's Explorer programExplorer programThe Explorer program is a United States space exploration program that provides flight opportunities for physics, heliophysics, and astrophysics investigations from space. Over 90 space missions have been launched from 1958 to 2011, and it is still active...
that preceded Vanguard in launching the first American satellite into orbit on January 31, 1958. - By February 1958, the political and defense communities had recognized the need for a high-level Department of Defense organization to execute R&D projects and created the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which later became the Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyDefense Advanced Research Projects AgencyThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...
or DARPA. - On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
. - Education programs were initiated to foster a new generation of engineerEngineerAn engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
s. - Increased support for scientific research. For 1959, Congress increased the National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
(NSF) appropriation to $134 million, almost $100 million higher than the year before. By 1968, the NSF budget would stand at nearly $500 million. - The Polaris missileUGM-27 PolarisThe Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fuel nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile built during the Cold War by Lockheed Corporation of California for the United States Navy....
program - Project managementProject managementProject management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end , undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value...
as an area of inquiry and an object of much scrutiny, leading up to the modern concept of projectProjectA project in business and science is typically defined as a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. Projects can be further defined as temporary rather than permanent social systems that are constituted by teams...
management and standardized project models such as the DoD Program Evaluation and Review TechniqueProgram Evaluation and Review TechniqueThe Program ' Evaluation and Review Technique, commonly abbreviated PERT, is a statistical tool, used in project management, that is designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project...
, PERT, invented for Polaris. - The decision by President John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, who campaigned in 1960 on closing the "missile gapMissile gapThe missile gap was the term used in the United States for the perceived disparity between the number and power of the weapons in the U.S.S.R. and U.S. ballistic missile arsenals during the Cold War. The gap only existed in exaggerated estimates made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and United...
", to deploy 1,000 Minuteman missiles, far more ICBMs than the Soviets had at the time.
External links
- Roger D. Launius: Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Age, nasa.gov