1957 Sputnik launches the space race: at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent the first satellite into space. A stunned America reacted by jump-starting its space program, leading to the historic moon landing 12 years later.

• Author: Roberts, Sam
• Position: TIMES PAST

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It weighed 184 pounds and was about as big as a basketball. But as historian Daniel J. Boorstin would later write, "Never before had so small and so harmless an object created such consternation."

The object was Sputnik, a small aluminum sphere with spiky antennas, and the first artificial satellite sent into orbit around Earth.

It was launched 50 years ago, on Oct. 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union, shocking the United States at the height of the Cold War and triggering a "space race" with the Soviets, little more than half a century after the first airplane flight.

Sputnik was the space shot heard around the world. It emitted a pulsating beep as it orbited the Earth every 98 minutes--a piercing propaganda coup for the Soviets and an alarming wake-up call to the U.S., which feared it was falling behind its Communist adversary technologically.

It even affected our language. Before Sputnik, "satellite" generally referred to the Eastern European countries under the iron-fisted control of the Soviet Union.

It's hard to imagine today, but Sputnik's launch practically caused a panic. Eyes and ears were trained skyward as Sputnik circled the Earth, and tough questions were asked in Washington: Why hadn't America been first? How long would it take to catch up? And the most frightening question of all: If the Russians could send a satellite into space, could they also launch missiles at Chicago, Seattle, or Atlanta?

'IT'S UP'

Scientists from around the world had been meeting throughout 1957--which had been designated the International Geophysical Year--to discuss their research on satellites and other topics. Ironically, a week of meetings was capped by a reception at the Soviet embassy in Washington on October 4. The Times's chief science reporter, Walter Sullivan, was there, until he got a call from his editors that the Soviets had just announced Sputnik's launch in Moscow. After whispering "It's up" to an American scientist, he raced back to the bureau to write his story for the front page of the next day's paper.

Sputnik dominated news coverage around the nation. Not only were the Soviets first, but with Sputnik at nearly 200 pounds, the planned U.S. contender, at under four pounds, seemed a lightweight by comparison. Less than a month later, the Soviets launched Sputnik 2 weighing 1,120 pounds--and with a passenger on board named Laika, a mixed-breed dog who was used to test the physiological effects of space travel. (She died of overheating and stress within hours.)

Sputnik (its name translated roughly as "fellow traveler") would fall from the sky after less than three months. But the repercussions of the Soviets' achievement--political, military, and scientific--lasted much longer.

Stung by the launch, President Dwight D. Eisenhower told Americans that Communist dictatorships might be capable of achievements like Sputnik, but its citizens did not enjoy the freedoms that Americans did.

In Washington, lawmakers saw what was...