Items related to Sputnik: The Shock of the Century
On October 4, 1957, as Leave It to Beaver premiered on American television, the Soviet Union launched the first man-made object into space―a 184-pound satellite carrying only a radio transmitter. While Sputnik I immediately shocked the world, its long-term impact was even greater, for it profoundly changed the shape of the twentieth century. Paul Dickson chronicles the dramatic events and developments leading up to and emanating from Sputnik's launch. Supported by groundbreaking original research and many recently declassified documents, Sputnik offers a fascinating profile of the early American and Soviet space programs and a strikingly revised picture of the politics and personalities―President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Wernher von Braun, and many others―behind the façade of America's fledgling efforts to get into space. Sputnik directly or indirectly influenced nearly every aspect of American life, from the demise of the suddenly superfluous tailfin and an immediate shift toward science in the classroom to the arms race that defined the Cold War, the competition to reach the moon, and the birth of the Internet.
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About the Author:
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Long fascinated by space and the Cold War, Paul Dickson is the coauthor (with Thomas B. Allen) of The Bonus Army and author of more than forty books on diverse topics, including two works of investigative journalism, Think Tanks and The Electronic Battlefield.
October 4, 1957, was my tenth birthday. Long after the festivities, I was in bed, snuggled under my Roy Rogers bedspread and enjoying my best present--a new transistor radio in a snappy leather case. This was a clandestine operation since I had been ordered to go to sleep hours ago. The radio, under the cover of Roy, was playing softly as I scanned the dial. Rather than the rock 'n' roll I sought, what I heard was the excited voice of a newscaster discussing something called Sputnik, a Russian satellite that had just been launched and, judging by the newscaster's agitated tone, should be a cause of great concern to everyone.
At this point, my knowledge of the Russians was a bit sketchy. I knew, of course, that they were the bad guys, responsible for making me practice hiding under my desk to ward off fallout in the event of a nuclear attack. I knew, too, that the Russians were supposed to be very smart and very tough. I knew this because my uncle often chided my cousin and I for our lag-about ways by telling us that someday we were going to have to fight the Russians, and he--a veteran of the European theater in World War II--happened to know that they were "smart, tough sons of bitches." His prediction seemed to be coming true on my tenth birthday. I hadn't expected to be forced to fight the Russians quite so soon, and I certainly hadn't expected to contend with missiles fired from the moon (which the newscaster was saying would be the inevitable next step, after Sputnik). I didn't yet know how to spell Sputnik, but I did know it was big trouble.
In the following days and weeks, I quickly realized that I wasn't the only one worried about the Russians and their satellites, but somehow I never lost the notion that the first Sputnik belonged to me. In some part of my mind, I think I assumed that I was the first private citizen in the U.S. to hear the news. Who else would be up in the middle of the night listening to the radio? (In fact, the launch had occurred some hours before I heard about it, but it was inconceivable to me that anything newsworthy might have taken place during my birthday party.) So even as the decades rolled by, as the word Sputnik first became a part of popular culture and then receded from center stage, I continued to nod quietly to myself every time I heard the name, secure in the belief that, although everyone claimed a knowledge of Sputnik, I had a special, even secret, relationship with it.
About 20 years ago, when I happened to interview Stephen King, I had my first inkling that I might have to share a little bit of Sputnik. It turns out that King was also celebrating his tenth birthday in the fall of 1957 (on September 21, just a few days before the launch) and was also shaken by the idea of the Russians in space--so much so that he contends to this day that Sputnik was a key factor in his becoming a writer of horror fiction. Well, maybe so, but he wasn't born on October 4, and he didn't have a Roy Rogers bedspread.
After reading Paul Dickson's fascinating Sputnik: The Shock of the Century, I'm afraid my illusions are shattered once and for all. Sputnik was a slut, a tramp, and she enjoyed special relationships with virtually the entire population of the U.S. alive on October 4, 1957. Dickson has all the details: the Stephen King story is there, but that's just the beginning. Little Richard was so shocked by the appearance of Sputnik in the sky as he was performing an outdoor concert that he renounced rock 'n' roll (temporarily) and became a preacher. Ross Perot was inspired by Sputnik to create an electronics dynasty. And countless other Americans, great and small, remember the launch of Sputnik as a turning point in their lives. Damn.
As disappointed as I was to read of Sputnik's infidelity, I was also caught up in the scientific and social history surrounding the satellite's creation and its aftermath. Dickson makes the space race come alive in layman's language, and he shows how the shock of the Russians being first at something galvanized this country in all sorts of far-reaching ways. Who would have thought, for example, that Sputnik was responsible for the Summer of Love? Here's how it worked: Sputnik proved the Russians were doing a better job than we were at education, prompting the National Defense Education Act, which stressed science but also advocated creative and independent thought. A generation removed from Sputnik, young people wearied of science but used their NDEA-funded independent thinking skills to challenge the establishment on everything from civil rights and Vietnam to long hair and free love. That Sputnik was some satellite--but I've known that for 44 years. Bill Ott
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- PublisherWalker Books
- Publication date2015
- ISBN 10 0802716032
- ISBN 13 9780802716033
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages320
- Rating
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