Sputnik and the Space Race

Fred Borch is a lawyer and historian. He served 25 years in the Army as a uniformed attorney. After retiring from active duty, Fred took a job in the U.S. Government as the only career historian whose focus was exclusively on military legal history. He was Professor of Legal History and Leadership for 18 years at The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School located at the University of Virginia.

When one sees Elon Musk wearing an OCCUPY MARS t-shirt or reads that the United States is planning to return to the moon, it is hard to remember that the race to explore and conquer outer space began on October 4, 1957 with a small Russian satellite called Sputnik.

Sputnik—Russian for “fellow traveler” or “satellite”–was small and had limited capabilities. About two feet in diameter, made of steel, weighing about 180 lbs. and shaped like a ball, it could do nothing more than emit a very high pitch “beep.” Sputnik could not take photographs or relay information back to the Russians; the “beep” only meant that research scientists on the ground could track Sputnik as it orbited Earth once every hour and a half. Despite these very limited technological capabilities, since it was the first artificial satellite to be launched into outer space, it was a phenomenal scientific achievement and was celebrated there with great fanfare in the Soviet Union as Russia was then known.

For the United States and Americans, however, Sputnik was frightening because it suggested that the Soviets—and communism—were technologically superior to the United States and the western democracies. Sputnik’s launch triggered a “Space Race” between the Soviet Union and the United States and, because the launch occurred at the height of the Cold War, the little satellite increased tensions between the two nuclear superpowers. The fear generated by Sputnik was exacerbated because the Soviets followed this technological “first” by launching the first Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile or “ICBM” shortly after Sputnik streaked into Outer Space. Since the United States did not test its first ICBM until 1959, this was yet more proof that Communist Russia was ahead of America when it came to technology in the Cold War. Perhaps more importantly, the Soviet ICBM could fly 4,000 miles, making it possible to hit American cities like New York and Washington, D.C. Did this mean that the Russians were more likely to win a nuclear war with the United States?

Sputnik soon influenced American culture, as reflected by a poem published in the New York Times that began with the words, “You tell the world it’s a Commie sky, and Uncle Sam’s asleep.” The idea that the Soviet Union might actually own the sky struck fear into more than a few Americans—and into leaders in Congress and the White House.

The result was that the United States threw itself into what was soon known as the Space Race. Politicians in Washington increased funding for education in mathematics and the sciences so that young Americans would be able to match the perceived technological skills of the Soviets. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was established in October 1958 in direct response to Sputnik, and it was not until Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in July 1969 that Americans were convinced that they had bested the Soviet Union when it came to space-related technology.

Sputnik remains an important technological achievement and a key influence in the Cold War—and a critical impetus for America’s exploration of outer space. The fear generated by Sputnik—and new technology—continues today. Will the United States dominate the field of Artificial Intelligence or “AI”, or will the competitive and scientifically savvy Chinese surpass us?  What about unmanned aerial vehicles?  Will another country dominate drone technology to the detriment of American national security?  If past history is any guide, we should expect the unexpected in our technological future. While the fear and worry generated by Sputnik has been largely forgotten today, it remains a real example of the impact of technology on how Americans think about themselves and their role in the world.