|
Sputnik,
Part I
Brian
Trumbore
President/Editor, StocksandNews.com
October 4, 1957
"Leave
It To Beaver" premiered the evening of 10/4/57 on
CBS, but it kind of got lost in the shuffle as one
of the century's big events was announced to the world?the
Soviets had launched the first man-made satellite,
"Sputnik."
It's
hard for many these days to understand just how big
a deal this was, particularly if you were born after
1950 or so, but this little beach ball-sized sphere,
weighing all of 184 pounds, changed the world.
It
took 96 minutes for Sputnik to orbit the Earth and
from October 4 through October 26, the chirp, or beep-beep,
that could be heard around the globe through radio
transmissions had an unbelievable impact on the psyche
of most Americans, in particular.
Sputnik
transformed debate in this country. After some initial
euphoria that man was able to accomplish such a seemingly
impossible task, fear took hold. The U.S. was supposed
to have a huge technological advantage over the Soviet
Union and the launch of this satellite caused many
to doubt whether this was truly the case. It didn't
help matters that three days later on October 7, the
Soviets also tested a hydrogen bomb. Suddenly, this
disciplined nation seemed to be able to compete on
all levels, a most disconcerting thought.
Five
years ago I read an excellent book titled "Sputnik:
The Shock of the Century" by Paul Dickson, which spends
a great deal of time going into the America of 1957,
so I thought I'd pass some of it along. [As you read
this, you'll also recognize a few parallels to our
post-9/11 world.]
Sputnik
was launched on a Friday, and the following Monday
CBS radio commentator Eric Sevareid - for those too
young to ever hear this man, you missed something;
that doom and gloom editor of "Week in Review" couldn't
hold a candle to this guy - began his broadcast:
"Here
in the capital, responsible men think and talk of
little but the metal spheroid that now looms larger
in the eye of the mind than the planet it circles
around."
A
reporter for the Washington Post, Chalmers Roberts,
wrote of the three things that were most on the minds
of official Washington (as author Dickson relates):
"That Sputnik would have an extreme impact on the
leaders of the underdeveloped world, who see it as
a victory for socialism; that its surprising size
and weight proved the Soviet Union had the power to
launch and deliver an 'intercontinental ballistic
missile with a multi- megaton hydrogen bomb warhead
of several thousand pounds' to any point on the face
of the Earth; and that a big argument was about to
break out in Washington as to what must be done and
who was responsible."
But
what was the America of 1957 really like? Well, for
starters, around the time of Sputnik, President Eisenhower
had a real problem on his hands with the battle over
desegregation down in Little Rock at Central High.
More broadly, we were a nation of 170 million, the
minimum wage was a $1, and a gallon of gas was 23
cents.
The
crime rate was soaring, though, to its highest level
ever, and there were some high-profile criminals in
those days, including George Metesky, who was arrested
in Waterbury, Connecticut, after confessing to be
the "Mad Bomber," as he planted 32 devices that injured
16 people in the New York area. Bomb hoaxes spread
all over the country, until he was caught.
There
was also the case of Ed Gein, a 51-year-old handyman
and sometime baby-sitter, who was involved in a series
of brutal murders and grave-robberies. The details
of Gein's crimes were so gruesome that most newspapers
left out the details. Is the name slightly familiar?
Well, that would be because Ed Gein was the inspiration
for Buffalo Bill in "Silence of the Lambs," as well
as Norman Bates in "Psycho."
But
back to Sputnik, Ross Perot said "My life changed
right there and then," while over at Harvard Law,
Ralph Nader recalled, "It hit the campus like a thunderbolt."
Author
James Michener was on a military transport the evening
of October 4 that was forced to ditch in the Pacific.
He was rescued, after floating for hours in a raft,
but all his rescuers could talk about was Sputnik.
The
second Sunday after the launch, Dickson writes that
the "pulpits of America rang with every sort of commentary,
a few going so far as to assert that it foretold the
Second Coming of Christ." And there is the famous
story that rocker Little Richard saw Sputnik in the
sky (as small as it was, it was still viewable with
the naked eye at certain points in the day) while
performing in Sydney, Australia. He saw it as a sign
and walked off stage, renouncing rock 'n' roll for
a spell, while he became an evangelist.
Even
the understated Senate legend Mike Mansfield proclaimed,
"What is at stake is nothing less than our survival."
As
for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, some, such as
author Stephen Ambrose ("Eisenhower: Soldier and President")
call it Ike's finest hour, because the President,
knowing far more about America's own satellite / ballistic
missile research than he let on, refused to panic.
Ike was shocked, however, at the "intensity of the
public concern."
The
main thing Eisenhower did was resist the call to throw
$billions into the military industrial complex, though
his own vice president, Richard Nixon, was for such
a program.
---
Launched
on October 4, the signal died on October 26, though
the craft orbited silently another 70 days. Sputnik
did nothing more than go 'beep-beep,' but this was
the Cold War, after all, and few in the West had any
confidence that this was all Sputnik was designed
for.
Of
course the big concern was how the Russians got Sputnik
in the air in the first place. Information on the
booster rocket wasn't known for years, but one 'good'
that came out of this scare was the fact it strengthened
NATO, which now recognized the threat assessment from
the Soviet Union had gone up considerably.
Sputnik
also undercut the stock market, and the U.S. economy
was in full recession. As author Dickson noted, "Speculation
on Wall Street was that the president deliberately
had not reacted strongly to Sputnik to minimize its
economic impact. It had been argued that if Eisenhower
had expressed fear and panic, there would have been
a run on the bank." [Parallels to today?]
You
have to picture that with Sputnik crossing the U.S.
4-6 times a day, most Americans suddenly felt vulnerable
for the first time in their lives. After all, not
one single enemy aircraft penetrated the skies of
the continental U.S. during World War II.
But
while the signal from the craft died on October 26,
1957, just one week later, November 3rd, the Soviets
launched Sputnik II?only this time instead of a 184-pound
beach ball, Sputnik II was 1,118-lbs. What kind of
rocket was able to propel this far bigger craft into
space? Further, there was actual cargo on board?in
the form of a 14-lb. female mongrel, part Samoyed
terrier, named "Laika."
The
Soviets had rigged a life-support system for the dog,
designed to last at least 100 hours, though there
was one problem. As of this time, there was no way
to bring a craft safely back to Earth, so many were
a bit disconcerted that this animal was doomed. And,
as it turns out, Laika died on the 4th day due to
the fact that a heat shield had broken off on launch
and the capsule overheated?but this wasn't known until
long after the fact. Sputnik II was up in the air
for five months before it crash landed.
With
their apparent rocket capability, the new fear in
the U.S. and the West was that the Russians would
be in a position to blackmail their enemies with these
new missiles that they had to be building. Famed reporter
Edward R. Murrow went so far as to say that the U.S.
could no longer negotiate from a position of strength.
Finally,
on December 6, 1957, America launched its own satellite,
Vanguard, except there was one problem. It rose a
few feet off the ground and collapsed in a heap of
flames. Pravda proclaimed, "Oh, what a Flopnik!" Some
Western papers read, "Ike's Sputnik Is Dudnik." It
didn't help matters any that two weeks after this
disaster, a top-secret report (Gaither) was leaked
to the public and Americans learned that our military
was unable to defend itself against a Soviet attack,
with the congressional report calling for a missile
defense to defend the country.
So,
boys and girls, the more things change, the more they
stay the same. Missile defense is far from a new concept,
that's for sure. And for those who long wistfully
for those fabulous days of the 1950s, do you really
want to go back to this era? Doesn't sound much better
than today, at least in terms of the fears that the
average American had.
---
One
of the results of Sputnik was a huge surge in reports
of flying saucers. Supposedly, Kenneth Arnold of Boise,
Idaho, was the first to actually see one, back in
1947 over Mount Ranier, Washington, which set off
a slew of sightings over the coming years. Then in
October 1955, the Air Force released a detailed study
that laid all of the reports following Arnold's as
being misinterpretations of "conventional phenomena."
Believe it or not, by the end of 1955, basically,
the subject was dead, that is until Sputnik was launched.
Immediately,
there was a proliferation in rocket clubs, particularly
with kids weaned on Buck Rogers and "Popular Science."
But the clubs' activities got so out of hand that
the state of Indiana banned them in Dec. '57. [Must
have been some of the same folks who thought Elvis's
behavior was subversive.]
Then
something big happened on April 14, 1958. There were
reports of flying saucers up and down the East Coast,
as well as the Caribbean. This was no isolated case.
According to "Sputnik" author Dickson, many of the
sightings were in Connecticut and on Long Island,
and the accounts were eerily similar.
"They
reported a brilliant, bluish-white object moving high
across the sky at an incredible speed. According to
reports, it suddenly turned red, and several smaller
objects detached themselves from the main object and
fell into formation behind it."
Down
in the Caribbean, observers on 15 different ships
had similar sightings that were later determined to
be just minutes after the Connecticut/Long Island
reports. All relayed that up to 27 detached objects
appeared to be trailing the main body.
Alas,
guess what it was? Why nothing more than the flaming
death of Sputnik II?which you'll recall contained
the corpse of our space dog hero, Laika. Sputnik II
had been in orbit 162 days before giving out.
In
fact, the vast majority of flying saucer reports are
probably nothing more than space debris. But despite
the claims in 1958 that what people were seeing was
really a burning satellite, there were others who
claimed that the Sputniks served as mating calls to
aliens. 'The Complete Book of UFOs' relates that back
on November 18, 1957, a 27-year-old mother from Birmingham,
England, Cynthia Appleton, "heard a high-pitched whistling
noise, smelled something like ozone, and saw a rose
pink hue spread throughout her suburban home. Out
of the hue materialized a tall humanoid creature with
elongated eyes, pale skin, and long blond hair. He
wore a silver one-piece suit with a covered helmet.
Cynthia had a telepathic chat with the alien, who
told her that he was from a planet called Gharnasvarn,
which wanted to make peaceful contact but hesitated
because of the Earth's atomic weapons. He made eight
more visits (ed. I'm assuming she served crumpets)?and
finally told her that she would have a cosmic child."
[Source: Paul Dickson]
Actually,
the above story goes even further, but I'll cut it
here. Personally, I always thought these guys came
from Mandromadon.
Meanwhile,
the United States did meet with success in its competition
with the Soviet Union, but in a most unexpected fashion.
In April 1958, a chap by the name of Harvey Lavan
Cliburn Jr., a 23-year-old Texan, won the first Tchaikovsky
Competition for pianists. Americans saw it as a victory
over the Russians at their own game - music - and
in Moscow to boot. Van Cliburn played 3 pieces*, all
by Russian composers, and the locals fell for him
in a big way. He even visited with Premier Nikita
Khrushchev.
And
this is hard to believe for anyone younger than 50,
but Van Cliburn received a hero's welcome unlike any
other in the U.S. since Charles Lindbergh's flight
in 1927. Imagine, he even got a ticker-tape parade
in New York. Music critic Welton Jones, writing in
the San Diego Union Tribune, would later report, "For
that time and place he was bulletproof, a full set
of Teflon-coated attitudes and achievements politically
correct decades before the concept was labeled. After
all, it was Van who paid back the Russians for the
insult of Sputnik." [Source: Paul Dickson]
*For
you classical music buffs, Van Cliburn's 3 tunes were
Tchaikovsky's "First Concerto" (required of all contestants),
Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto and a rondo by
Dmitri Kabalensky.
---
Some
final thoughts on the legacy of the first man-made
satellite.
--By
1964, 250,000 people were employed in the U.S. space
program, either directly or indirectly.
--The
U.S. was now in a rush to get to the moon before the
Soviets, but this probably resulted in the tragedy
of 1/27/67, when Apollo I astronauts Virgil "Gus"
Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee were sitting in
the capsule on the launch pad of what was to be the
first manned flight of Apollo, when an electrical
fire caused by a short-circuit produced a spark in
an atmosphere of pure oxygen. The fire was intense
as a blowtorch and the three died in seconds. A study
later found that the accident had a simple explanation,
as the flight director put it. "We'd gotten too much
in a goddamn hurry." From a risk standpoint, imagine
that the electrical system in the Apollo capsule,
the size of a minivan, had 30 miles of wire.
--Walter
Cronkite, commenting in his book "A Reporter's Life,"
on the accomplishment of landing a man on the moon:
"Of
all humankind's achievements in the twentieth century
- and all our gargantuan peccadillos as well, for
that matter - the one event that will dominate the
history books a half a millennium from now will be
our escape from our earthly environment and landing
on the moon."
--Gabriel
Heatter, an influential news commentator of the 1950s,
offered up the following in January 1958, following
the demise of the first Sputnik.
"Thank
you, Mr. Sputnik. You will never know how big a noise
you made. You gave us a shock which hit many people
as hard as Pearl Harbor. You hit our pride a frightful
blow. You suddenly made us realize that we are not
the best in everything. You reminded us of an old-fashioned
American word, humility. You woke us up out of a long
sleep. You made us realize a nation can talk too much,
too long, too hard about money. A nation, like a man,
can grow soft and complacent. It can fall behind when
it thinks it is Number One in everything. Comrade
Sputnik, you taught us more about the Russians in
one hour than we had learned in forty years."
Next
week, more on Sputnik. I have a special treat for
you. A guest writer.
Brian
Trumbore
|
