The Dawn of the Space Age

September 30, 2007 9:50 PM

Fifty years ago this week the heavens beeped (also, the beeps as recorded in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Washington - though the accompanying light in the sky wasn't Sputnik after all). The launch of Sputnik started the Space Age causing a stir in the United States, and leading to the birth of NASA. The history and ongoing echoes of the Sputnik launch are wonderfully covered in a recent New York Times retrospective with interesting accompanying videos.
posted by blahblahblah (26 comments total)

oops "and led to the birth of NASA."
posted by blahblahblah at 9:53 PM on September 30, 2007

I 9829 Sputnick.
posted by humannaire at 10:08 PM on September 30, 2007

4 eva.
posted by humannaire at 10:08 PM on September 30, 2007

Nice post blahblahblah. A half a century ago. So much happened since then and now so much depends on satellites in orbit around Earth. Wonder how many are up there now and what the legalities are of sending one up? And how come they don't bash into each other?

Fascinating that NASA arose out of Sputnik.

Interesting aside, "The word "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958. Caen coined the term by adding the Russian suffix -nik after Sputnik I to the Beat Generation. Caen's column with the word came six months after the launch of Sputnik."

An Atomic Age song to celebrate, Beep Beep.
posted by nickyskye at 10:11 PM on September 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

"What will happen when people see the Earth, which is such an incredibly pleasurable thing to see from space...what happens, when, over the course of your trip, it diminishes down to a dot? This is what some psychiatrists call the 'Earth Out of View' phenomenon....They're worried about what will happen when you take the most isolating trip in the history of mankind, and what will add to the stress of that."

Whoa.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 10:14 PM on September 30, 2007

By the way, the poem written by the Democratic governor of Michigan about Eisenhower (a frequent golfer) captured the age quite well, both in its fear, and its relatively restrained criticism:

Oh little Sputnik, flying high
With made-in-Moscow beep,
You tell the world it's a Commie sky
and Uncle Sam's asleep.

You say on fairway and on rough
The Kremlin knows it all,
We hope our golfer knows enough
To get us on the ball.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:39 PM on September 30, 2007

Ah well, shame to waste it, so here's the post I would have made ...

Спутник-1

Oh little Sputnik, flying high
With made-in-Moscow beep,
You tell the world it's a Commie sky
and Uncle Sam's asleep.

You say on fairway and on rough
The Kremlin knows it all,
We hope our golfer knows enough
To get us on the ball.

Mennen Williams, Michigan State Governor, 1957
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:39 PM on September 30, 2007

oh snap, here comes the fistfight.
posted by duende at 10:49 PM on September 30, 2007

Good coverage from NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday on this subject.
posted by peeedro at 11:06 PM on September 30, 2007

"Many older people think they heard Sputnik "beep." But Sputnik did not beep."

(He may be right - you can tune in the U.S. time signal station WWVB on 60kHz in the same fashion, but tuning it "properly" means you really just hear the static modulating, tonelessly, higher and lower...)
posted by mykescipark at 11:44 PM on September 30, 2007

The USSR! I remember them!
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:56 PM on September 30, 2007

Always found it funny that sputnik, usually translated as "companion," literally means "fellow traveler." (Those droll Soviets, always clowning around behind the Irony Curtain!)
posted by rob511 at 1:44 AM on October 1, 2007

As one of, I'm sure, many MeFites waiting for October 4 to post a proper celebration of Sputnik, I damn you, blahblahblah, for jumping the gun!

Otherwise, nice post.
posted by Skeptic at 2:13 AM on October 1, 2007

So I didn't see it, and I didn't hear it. Hmmmmph!

But the guy in the newsreel heard it on his IBM 704!
(Didn't know mainframes were that talented back then)
posted by MtDewd at 4:08 AM on October 1, 2007

I didn't hear it, but I saw it. It was pretty neat, a star moving slowly across the sky.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:19 AM on October 1, 2007

Interesting aside, "The word "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen...

The rest of the story is interesting:

The Russian satellite that so alarmed America, Sputnik I, went into orbit on the 4th of October, 1957. One month later, Herb Caen, a journalist working for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote that the mad young bohemians hanging around North Beach espresso bars were as 'far out' as Sputnik, and he re-labelled the beats as 'beatniks'. From that time, the Soviet suffix 'nik' came to be added to anything that smelt of 'un-American activities'. To quote James Campbell again, 'the suffix waved an unwashed hand in the direction of beardedness, idleness, hoboism, non-patriotism, and the ultimate, communism.' But interestingly, the term 'Beatnik' also went hand in hand with the commercialisation of the Beats, rebellion as commodity - 'Beatnik' turned 'beat' into marketable kitsch.

Although they had appropriated the original beat word from black jazz musicians, the Beats disliked their word being further appropriated and mutated. Ginsberg wrote to the New York Times objecting to 'the foul word beatnik' and saying that 'if beatniks and not illuminated Beat poets overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash man.' This was in 1959, and by then weekend beats were everywhere, mouthing 'Like wow, crazy man, dig it, and what a gas'. Kerouac was confused and nauseated by the whole thing. Rexroth resigned as father figure of the Beats. Already disenchanted with Kerouac's role in the mass media and Ginsberg's penchant for publicity stunts like reading his poetry naked, Rexroth was disgusted that a dissident movement was once again being co-opted and the 'anarchist essence of beat was being siphoned off and used to fuel the same old superstructure.'

Magazines were full of pictures or caricatures of beatniks, poetry book in hand, loose-fitting hooped t-shirt, beret, sunglasses and goatee beard for the boys; heavy eye make-up, hair cropped and oversize sweaters for the girls. The ultimate insult must have been this ad in The Village Voice: RENT GENUINE BEATNIKS. Badly groomed but brilliant. Male and female. $40 per night (Bongo drums and guitars extra).

posted by pracowity at 5:20 AM on October 1, 2007

For those who think they know the story of the Space Race, and like the glimpse into the previously hidden interorganizational struggle both the US and the USSR had to get through to get to space, I can't recommend the book Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space any more strongly.
posted by Plutor at 5:27 AM on October 1, 2007

I didn't hear it, but I saw it. It was pretty neat, a star moving slowly across the sky.

But:

Pravda also published a description of Sputnik's orbit to help people watch it pass. The article failed to mention that the light seen moving across the sky was the spent booster rocket's second stage, which was in roughly same orbit, Chertok said.

The tiny orbiter was invisible to the naked eye.

posted by pracowity at 5:41 AM on October 1, 2007

A history of DOD and NASA divergence with respect to human spaceflight:

Into the Unknown Together: The DOD, NASA, and Early Spaceflight

Produced on the government's dime, so available as a free pdf

Full disclosure: written by my brother.
posted by neat-o at 8:12 AM on October 1, 2007

The article failed to mention that the light seen moving across the sky was the spent booster rocket's second stage, which was in roughly same orbit, Chertok said.


Great. Another reason for me to hate the Godless Russkies.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:57 AM on October 1, 2007

The Far-out Sound of Sputnik.

And here, too.
posted by humannaire at 11:43 AM on October 1, 2007

LBJ's Space Race:

I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon.

posted by kirkaracha at 11:48 AM on October 1, 2007

It seems to me that the USA went from zero to hero almost overnight in the space race. Sputnik freaked everyone out and all stops were pulled to create an educated populace that could compete with the Russkies. If you couldn't do sciences, you did tech or trades. Everyone had to become someone productive and skilled.

The technology developments that arose from that investment in education paid dividends for more than a generation: brilliant, well-educated people made the USA the world economic leader.

But then things were allowed to slide. The education system in the USA is, afaikt, mostly a shambles. All the good trades work was allowed to vamoose over to China. A ton of tech work snuck out the back door and went to India. And the USA is left with... well, not nearly the mindwealth that it once had.

But I think the opportunity to take a leadership role has come up again, this time to do with energy/environment technologies. Were the USA to establish itself as the leader in green tech, the next generation or two would do terrifically well.

Alas, I don't think the political will exists. The USA is damn near doomed to collapse in on itself, an empire killed by corporatism.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:07 PM on October 1, 2007

posted by nickyskye Interesting aside, "The word "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958. Caen coined the term by adding the Russian suffix -nik after Sputnik I to the Beat Generation. Caen's column with the word came six months after the launch of Sputnik."

I liked the name the American press gave to the Soviet space dogs: "Muttniks."

I hated the Soviets for doing that to dogs, though. Fucking Soviets. Poor dogs.
posted by fandango_matt at 8:19 PM on October 1, 2007

Better they use dogs than cats, though!
posted by five fresh fish at 9:57 PM on October 1, 2007

Wow. I'm surprised the dog lovers/cat haters didn't rip me a new one for that comment...
posted by five fresh fish at 4:31 PM on October 2, 2007