LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sputnik: Soviet Union
built 630 days ago
Perhaps the most shocking thing about Sputnik for U.S. scientists was its weight -- 184 pounds. The U.S. had its own space program, but it was working on satellites that weighed a fraction of that. The satellite's weight implied that the Soviets had advanced rockets that might be able to carry a nuclear weapon thousands of miles. It ... meant that other conquests of space might be within reach for them, achievements beyond the dreams of U.S. scientists.
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The Sputnik launch was a spectacular propaganda victory for the Soviet Union and its leader Nikita Khrushchev. Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States at the time. He dismissed the Sputnik as being insignificant. Many Americans... considered it as a symbolic nuclear weapon.
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Following the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first man-made satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to U.S. security and technological leadership, urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. Several months of debate produced agreement that a new federal agency was needed to conduct all nonmilitary activity in space.
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The launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, inaugurated the Space Age in 1957. Conceptually, its origins date back to the early 20th century to the works of the Russian (and later Soviet) pseudo-scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy who came up with the first mathematical considerations on the possibility of space travel using liquid propellant rocket engines. There was... a great deal of gap between theory and practice, and it wasn't until the late 1940s that rocket technology was mature enough to be considered as a solution to the goal of spaceflight.
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Technically speaking, Sputnik was no more sophisticated than a cheap transmitter from Radio Shack attached to 120 pounds of batteries. It was the R-7 launch vehicle that scared the pants off the U.S. military. The Soviets proved they not only had a rocket with precise guidance systems, but one that could launch a heavier payload than anything the Americans had.
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When Sputnik 1 was launched 50 years ago today, no one truly anticipated the resounding impact it would have on science, technology and the balance of political power around the world. Not least the Soviets, who were hesitant to divert precious resources from their fledgling ballistic-missile program for what many in the government regarded as one man's fanciful hobby.
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