We’re all familiar with the widely repeated plot line of history that the US was shocked into activity in the space race by the launch of Sputnik.
What are your specific personal memories of the reaction to the launch of Sputnik?
Do you remember where you were when you found out? Did you go outside and try to see it at night (or better yet pick up the radio beeping)? Did you go into school the next day and your teacher said “See I told all you little ****s math is important”? Did any of it affect you personally?
I’m interested in individual, average Joe reactions and memories. Of course also feel free to share if you happened to be closer to the launch or official reaction than an average Joe.
Recollections of non-USAians are also highly welcomed.
I was five. I remember going out on the front lawn with my father and brothers to try and see it as it passed. My father seemed fascinated, almost entranced. I remember how he kept looking up at the night sky with an almost ecstatic smile on his face. My brothers and my mothers didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. There were other families out on their lawns looking for it, too. I was too young to really understand the event itself, but I was terribly curious about why all the grownups seemed to be so excited.
I was eleven. I recall that there was a bit of fear – heck, panic. The Communists had been able to put a satellite in orbit, they had the high ground, good lord they could put an A-bomb up there next, and we are stuck here at their mercy. We better get moving or we’re all going to have to learn Russian.
I was 15 at the time and I really don’t remember it as anything any more special than other news of the day. For years I had had this basic dread of WWIII or being attacked or A-bombs or all that sort of nameless fear we all had when we went to sci-fi movies and such. And there was a lot of fascination with gizmos and doodads in space and whatever. But you must remember that we were (as a nation) not even fully involved in TV and jet planes and certainly not space travel so most of my awareness of the technology was fuzzy at best.
I rate it as about as exciting as Castro taking over Cuba.
I was 20 and a long time science-fiction fan. I was somewhat excited and it never occurred to me to worry about bombs from space or anything like that. As for the news of the day, it didn’t make any special impression on me. I thought it would be the beginning of real space exploration, like Heinlein’s Farmer in the Sky. But that was not to be and probably never will.
I was twelve, and this is also how I remember it. It sort of shook me, having grown up thinking that the US was always the first and best at anything it set its hand to.
It didn’t help that every time there was something on the news about Russia, mom would quote my dad (a WWII vet and POW): “Our next war will be with Russia.”
I was almost 6, and I remember the beeping on the radio. 3 years later, when my mother woke me up to tell me that the Russians had launched Gagarin into orbit, I was pissed that they had beaten us. I was already into space travel by then.
I was in third grade. I think the adults around me kept the fear talk at a minimum but I remember being aware that the Russians were beating us and that was not a good thing.
I remember hearing that they were sending animals into space and being worried about the well-being of the creatures.
And do you remember the space motifs which appeared everywhere? In material and wallpaper and the decor of restaurants.
Yes, I remember. The next day was the first day of my college freshman physics class at Notheastern and the prof did essentially say something like, “See I told all you little ****s physics is important” as he displayed the headlines and photos in the New York Times.
I do remember that I was at home in suburban Boston when the news was broadcast. We did go outside and saw the shiny grapefruit-sized orb at night and we heard its beeping over the radio.
It made us aware that we were way behind the Russkies and that was reinforced when Laika the dog orbited the Earth. Sputnik increased the intensity and direction of our science education, including learning the metric system of measurement. That of course didn’t keep us from crashing that billion $ Mars probe by confusing metric with American units. It was all worth while, though, when I witnessed Apollo-Saturn 14 blast off with Shepard, Roosa, and Mitchell in January 1971, destined for the third moon landing. We beat them, thanks to the commitment by JFK to land us on the moon and return in the decade.
I was 9 or ten at the time.
I remember it as a big deal on the news. I also remember a lot about how kids in school were not studing enough and that was why the Reds beat us. I remember thinking after a news cast what a load of BS.
I was in high school, and I remember very clearly walking from my physics class to whatever was next, pondering what my physics teacher (great teacher - Mr Bescoby!) had commented on just a few minutes ago…that the Soviets were ahead of us in science, and basically we needed to catch up.
Of course I was a science oriented student, so I thought it was pretty cool, and I was looking forward to the future.
I was fourteen at the time and grew up in a family that didn’t buy into the “Red Scare” that much. I had a lot of faith in my country and just figured that we would catch up with them. I don’t think that I was aware of why being in space first was all that significant.
When I finally spotted Sputnik from my driveway with my family sometime later, I was just in awe that I could see “it.” It was strange to see anything moving so silently through the sky. I just loved it!
I thought about Sputnik the night that I spotted Haley’s Comet barely climbing. It wasn’t as defined. But I had waited a long time for that moment. Later that night, I stretched out on a blanket and was scanning the sky for constellations. Another satellite or space object caught my eye. I will never be able to see one without thinking of Sputnik.
I had just turned 12. I remember going to school, and for some reason the windows were rather steamy, and the kids were finger-drawing pictures of Sputnik on the windows. And there was a kind of ominous feeling going around; we weren’t used to other countries beating us at anything . . . especially ***that ***country.
My homeroom teacher was also my English teacher. There had always been rumors that she was a Communist, and after Sputnik those rumors seemed to be true. If you got a good grade on something she would draw a little Sputnik on the top of your paper. If you got a low grade, she drew a little Vanguard rocket. Vanguards were the rockets that the U.S. was working on, and there were a lot of failures at that time.
I was at the head of the class in English, and always won the spelling bees. For the rest of that year my nickname was Sputnik.
Yeah, I remember seeing it fly by at night. And also the “Echo” weather satellite, a few years later.