Audience: 5^th grade and up

Apart from a few vague hints by Russian scientists that a launch was in the works, there was no advance warning of Sputnik. News of the world's first man-made satellite burst onto the front page and stayed there for weeks. In the announcement of their feat, the Soviets said that the world could now see how "the new socialist society turns even the most daring of man's dreams into a reality." In the U.S., scientists and the military went to work tracking Sputnik's course.

Sputnik's radio signals, rebroadcast by television and radio stations around the world, immediately captured the public's imagination.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Sputnik for U.S. scientists was its weight -- 184 pounds. The U.S. had its own space program, but it was working on satellites that weighed a fraction of that. The satellite's weight implied that the Soviets had advanced rockets that might be able to carry a nuclear weapon thousands of miles. It also meant that other conquests of space might be within reach for them, achievements beyond the dreams of U.S. scientists.

Privately, U.S. officials blamed the technology gap on a lack of funding. But publicly, they said that the U.S. satellite program had never been in a race with the Soviets. One admiral even called Sputnik a "hunk of iron almost anybody could launch." Soon after, military personnel were told not to discuss the satellite.

Activities:

1. How heavy was Sputnik?
2. Why was the weight of Sputnik such a shock to US scientists?
3. What implications did this have for the US?
4. How fast did Sputnik travel?
5. One admiral described Sputnik as a "hunk of iron almost anybody could launch." Why do you think he made this statement?
6. Design a newspaper front page reporting the Sputnik launch. Have half of the class design a front page from the American perspective and the other half from the Russian perspective. Have the class compare the newspapers they have created. (see the newspaper transcript for ideas)

Soviet Fires Earth Satellite Into Space; It Is Circling the Globe at 18,000 M.P.H.; Sphere Tracked in 4 Crossings Over U.S.

By WILLIAM J. JORDEN

Special to The New York Times

MOSCOW, Saturday, Oct. 5 -- The Soviet Union announced this morning that it successfully launched a man-made earth satellite into space yesterday.

The Russians calculated the satellite's orbit at a maximum of 560 miles above the earth and its speed at 18,000 miles an hour.

The official Soviet news agency Tass said the artificial moon, with a diameter of twenty-two inches and a weight of 184 pounds, was circling the earth once every hour and thirty-five minutes. This means more than fifteen times a day.

Two radio transmitters, Tass said, are sending signals continuously on frequencies of 20.005 and 40.002 megacycles. These signals were said to be strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators. The trajectory of the satellite is being tracked by numerous scientific stations.

Tass said the satellite was moving at an angle of 65 degrees to the equatorial plane and would pass over the Moscow area twice today.

"Its flight," the announcement added, "will be observed in the rays of the rising and setting sun with the aid of the simplest optical instruments, such as binoculars and spyglasses."

The Soviet Union said the world's first satellite was "successfully launched" yesterday. Thus it asserted that it had put a scientific instrument into space before the United States. Washington has disclosed plans to launch a satellite next spring, Oct. 4.

The Moscow announcement said the Soviet Union planned to send up more and bigger and heavier artificial satellites during the current International Geophysical Year, an eighteen-month period of study of the earth, its crust and the space surrounding it.

The rocket that carried the satellite into space left the earth at a rate of five miles a second, the Tass announcement said. Nothing was revealed, however, concerning the material of which the man-made moon was constructed or the site in the Soviet Union where the sphere was launched.

The Soviet Union said its sphere circling the earth had opened the way to interplanetary travel. It did not pass up the opportunity to use the launching for propaganda purposes. It said in its announcement that people now could see how "the new socialist society" had turned the boldest dreams of mankind into reality.

Moscow said the satellite was the result of years of study and research on the part of Soviet scientists. Tass said: "For several years the research and experimental designing work has been under way in the Soviet Union to create artificial satellites of the earth. It has already been reported in the press that the launching of the earth satellites in the U.S.S.R. had been planned in accordance with the program of International Geophysical Year research.

"As a result of intensive work by the research institutes and design bureaus, the first artificial earth satellite in the world has now been created. This first satellite was successfully launched in the U.S.S.R. October four."

The Soviet announcement said that as a result of the tremendous speed at which the satellite was moving it would burn up as soon as it reached the denser layers of the atmosphere. It gave no indication how soon that would be.

Military experts have said that the satellites would have no practicable military application in the foreseeable future. They said, however, that study of such satellites could provide valuable information that might be applied to flight studies for intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The satellites could not be used to drop atomic or hydrogen bombs or anything else on the earth, scientists have said. Nor could they be used in connection with the proposed plan for aerial inspection of military forces around the world.

Their real significance would be in providing scientists with important new information concerning the nature of the sun, cosmic radiation, solar radio interference and static-producing phenomena radiating from the north and south magnetic poles. All this information would be of inestimable value for those who are working on the problem of sending missiles and eventually men into the vast reaches of the solar system.

Publicly, Soviet scientists have approached the launching of the satellite with modesty and caution. On the advent of the International Geophysical Year last June they specifically disclaimed a desire to "race" the United States into the atmosphere with the little sphere.

The scientists spoke understandingly of "difficulties" they had heard described by their American counterparts. They refused several invitations to give any details about their own problems in designing the satellite and gave even less information than had been generally published about their work in the Soviet press.

Concerning the launching of their first satellite, they said only that it would come "before the end of the geophysical year" -- by the end of 1958. Several weeks earlier, however, in a guarded interview given only to the Soviet press, Alexander N. Nesmeyanov, head of the Soviet Academy of Science, dropped a hint that the first launching would occur "within the next few months."

But generally Soviet scientists consistently refused to boast about their project or to give the public or other scientists much information about their progress. Key essentials concerning the design of their satellites, their planned altitude, speed and instruments to be carried in the small sphere, were carefully guarded secrets.

Activities:

• Read the newspaper article above, Tass is mentioned numerous times, what is Tass?
• Develop a political cartoon to go with this newspaper article expressing the opinion of the American public.
• Imagine you are living in 1957; write a letter to President Eisenhower encouraging him to support increased funding for science and math education as a result of the Sputnik launch.