Sputnik: The Launch of the Space Race

" The full story behind one of the 20th century's most dramatic events the launch of the space race On October 4, 1957, as Leave It to Beaver premiered on American television, the Soviet Union issued an announcement that stunned the world. Their scientists had successfully sent Sputnik I an 84-kilogram sphere with only a radio transmitter inside its highly polished shell into orbit around the Earth. It was the first man-made object in space. In this engaging and far-reaching book, Paul Dickson chronicles the dramatic developments leading up to and emanating from Sputnik. With the support of groundbreaking research and recently declassified documents, he offers a fascinating profile of the early space programs and a strikingly revised picture of the politics and personalities behind the efforts to get into space. Although Sputnik was unmanned, its story is intensely human, from the visionary Soviet engineers whose theories were ahead of their time to the public-relations specialists who created one of the greatest publicity events of all time. In a single weekend, the West was wrenched out of a mood of smugness and post-war material comfort. The initial fear of the Soviet's intentions galvanized the United States and swiftly prompted innovative developments that define our world today. Sputnik influenced nearly every aspect of North American life, from the demise of the suddenly superfluous tail fin and an immediate shift towards 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."