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The Challenge of Sputnik

© Bryan Johnson

By the mid 1950s, the United States was making tremendous progress in achieving supersonic flight as well as developing advanced rocketry. Thus, it came as a great surprise to many when Radio Moscow announced on October 4, 1957 that the earth had a new, Soviet-made moon, called Sputnik. While the initial impact of the Sputnik launch on the U.S. space program has been well documented, the extent to which U.S. prestige and technological know-how was damaged by this event is only now becoming clear.

Recently declassified documents reveal that it would be difficult to overstate the impact of the Soviet's launch of Sputnik on the U.S. space program. For example, a recently declassified 1957 United State Information Agency (USIA) report had the following assessment:

One week after the USSR announced that it had launched an earth satellite, a number of broad major effects on world public opinion appeared clear: 1) Soviet claims of scientific and technological superiority over the West and especially the U.S. have won greatly widened acceptance. 2) Public opinion in friendly countries shows decided concern over the possibility that the balance of military power has shifted or may soon shift in favor of the USSR. 3) The general credibility of Soviet propaganda has been greatly enhanced. 4) American prestige is viewed as having sustained a severe blow, and the American reaction, so sharply marked by concern, discomfiture and intense interest, has itself increased the disquiet of friendly countries and increased the impact of the satellite.

Thus, Sputnik did not just alarm the U.S., engaging it in a duel with the Soviets to demonstrate superiority in space; it also alarmed the world. Indeed, the USIA assessment demonstrates that there was a global concern that the U.S. already had lost its military and technological post-war edge to the Soviets. According to the USIA report:

Although the informed intelligentsia may give only limited assent to Soviet assertions, this will not immediately or very greatly limit Soviet psychological gains. The technologically less advanced - the audience most impressed and dazzled by the sputnik - are often the audience most vulnerable to the attractions of the Soviet system. The crux of the long-range Soviet propaganda effort may be its ability to win acceptance for the validity of the Soviet system, especially among the newly independent or dependent peoples, largely preoccupied with establishing quickly the technological level that will assure economic viability and national progress. The satellite, presented as the achievement of the Soviet system, helps to lend credence to Soviet claims - particularly if it is followed by comparable achievements unmatched by the West.

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