On Sputnik, and Challenger...

[alexpgp]

An interesting article at National Review Online provided a new insight into the early space race:

After Sputnik was launched on Oct. 4, 1957, President Eisenhower reacted calmly; he knew that by not complaining about the overflight of U.S. territory by the Soviet spacecraft, he was setting a precedent. [...] Three years later, when the first U.S. spy satellites successfully delivered pictures from deep inside the USSR, no one in Moscow denounced the Americans for violations of the sacred airspace of Mother Russia. The U.S. no longer needed to fly U-2 missions in order to look inside their borders.

From a strategic point of view, Sputnik was a Soviet blunder of the first magnitude. If the Americans had gone first, it would have given Russia a chance to demonize all space operations as imperialist aggression in the heavens. Every U.S. satellite launch would have been denounced as a crime against humanity. The U.S. space program in both its civil and military aspects would have been crippled.

In 1957, I was too young to understand anything about space, but among the things the United States did to react to the dawn of the space era was to encourage the study of all things Russian. My mother, who had been exposed to a number of languages in childhood and had formally studied French, Italian, and German in school, got caught up in the "Russian fever", and although she eventually devoted her life to teaching, I've seen occasional references to the idea of becoming a professional translator here and there among her papers.

Indeed, it was somewhat revealing to me, back in the aftermath of 9/11, that the government's reaction to the perceived threat of terrorism was diametrically opposite to its reaction, a little more than a generation earlier, to the perceived threat of Soviet space domination.

Post-Sputnik, our country's reaction was to encourage a broad, widespread examination of the Soviets: learn their language, understand their culture, determine their capabilities, get inside their heads! Post-9/11, our reaction was to encourage broad acquiescence to the idea of letting government "take care of things," with the result being that almost everything we know about the Arab world comes to us filtered through somebody's bias.

Having Sputnik rise to the very top of the chowder in my head was probably the result of having been reminded that today is the 25th anniversary of the loss of Challenger and its crew. I didn't have to count very long while watching the news before TPTB decided to replay the explosion just one more time. Fortunately, I had the remote in my hand, so I could turn off the unfolding spectacle.

BTW, I only relatively recently read an excellent description of the post-loss investigation in one of Richard Feynman's books, titled What Do You Care What Other People Think?. I made me wonder how NASA ever accomplished anything at all.

Cheers...

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

I was at Stanford when Sputnik went up. One of my EE profs, Von Russell Eshleman, was involved with a fixed narrow beam radio telescope that was studying the sun. He invited a bunch of us to come out to the site with the hope that Sputnik would pass through the beam. I can't remember if it did or not (probably not), but I still remember the "Beep, beep, beep" from the Hallicrafters communications receiver.

[daphnis.livejournal.com]

Brute force and ignorance can accomplish all sorts of changes. End results are not always what may have been intended, however. Do you suppose we'll ever really comprehend that before we reduce our planet to barren wastelands?

[grosh.livejournal.com]

It looks a some kind of conspirology:
From a strategic point of view...The U.S. space program in both its civil and military aspects would have been crippled.