IGY and Sputnik
15 January 2015
Warfare drove science
•War provided a need for scientific andtechnical development, leading togovernment support
•Vannevar Bush described the bargain in ‘TheEndless Frontier’
•WWII achievements: RADAR, A-bomb,missiles, computers
•US policy was a conscious application of theManhattan Project approach, for statedirection of science
Hirohima1945
Bikini 1954
V-2
Space precursors
•Early pioneers were driven by dreams of spaceflight
•Bolsheviks were committed to materialgrowth through science
•German military developed V-1, V-2 carriedbombs to England, invulnerable ‘buzz bombs’
•US, USSR captured German experts
•A-bomb led to Cold War: atomic weapons andICBMs to deliver them
IGY
•International Geophysical Year (1957)
•Planned exploration of Earth and Space
•Each nation announced plans
•US, USSR proposed launch of a small artificialsatellite
•US plan selected NAS/Navy Vanguard overArmy/JPL Explorer (not to interfere withmilitary)
•USSR plans not considered credible
Sputnik
•Announced after successful launch on 4 Oct1957
•No US vehicle was ready then
•Immediate alarm and danger! Sputnik hadimmediate discontinuous effects
•Free world looked to US for moral superiorityof liberal institution and its dominant military
•Both threatened
•Sputnik launch after 100-th birthday ofTsiokolvsky, before 40-th anniversary ofRussian revolution
•How had the Russians come so far? Interest inmaterialist progress; Totalitarian commandeconomy; Effort to surpass technicalachievements of capitalist states; technologyserves progress!
•Sputnik was a famous victory expressing muchthat is good in Russian culture
•Von Braun had already shown multi-stagerockets capable to launch to orbit in 1954, butnot yet demonstrated
•Solid state, miniaturization important becauseof limited rocket lift (James van Allen later toldhis student George Ludwig ‘use transistors’).
•Reliability also critical, along with magneticrecorders
Vanguard Explodes 1957
US Response
•Meet the competition of direct military threatand to free enterprise and political freedom
•Vanguard launch 6 Dec 1957 failedspectacularly on TV: ‘Kaputnik’
•LBJ Senate hearings on space/defense
•Belatedly, Von Braun and Army were enlisted
•Successful Explorer I launched 31 Jan 1958,discovered ‘Van Allen Belts’
Sputnik changed the Cold War
•Presaged nuclear parity
•Ended scientific superiority
•Highlihted vulnerability
•New era for military, politics called for totalloyalty to prove the superiority of Americaninstitutions