1957

Sputnik 1

Sergei Korolev (1907–1966)

Americans tend to vividly recall where they were and what they were doing during key events that have come to define certain generations or eras. Examples include the bombing of Pearl Harbor; the assassination of John F. Kennedy; the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger; and of course the traumatic terrorist events of 9/11. For one generation of Americans, the defining event came in the fall of 1957.

On October 4, the Soviet Union became the first nation to launch an artificial satellite into space. Leading Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolev headed the team that had created the USSR’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and he lobbied the government to allow him and his team to modify the R-7 rocket so that it could launch a small scientific payload into Earth’s orbit. The Soviet government approved Korolev’s plan in the hopes that they could beat the Americans into space. The payload was called Sputnik, Russian for “satellite.” The Space Age had officially begun.

Sputnik 1 circled Earth every 96 minutes for three months, emitting a telltale beep-beep-beep on its single-watt radio, which could easily be picked up by ham radio operators around the world. The satellite created a sort of mild hysteria in the United States, where the public was acutely aware of the Soviet Union’s ability to launch ICBMs—outfitted with nuclear warheads—to any target on the planet. The US government stepped up its own space efforts, and America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, was successfully launched about two weeks after Sputnik burned up.

Sputnik also launched an unprecedented mini revolution in science and technology funding and education in the United States, the effects of which are still experienced today. The Americans most influenced by Sputnik—often referred to as the Apollo generation—went on to see America win the space race, watching 12 people walk on the Moon between 1969 and 1972, followed by decades of other stunning achievements.

A replica of Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial space satellite, housed in the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The metallic sphere is about 23 inches (58 centimeters) in diameter and the antennae (only partially shown here) extend out 112 inches (285 centimeters).