IGY and Sputnik 15 January 2015
Dec 18, 2015
Warfare drove science• War provided a need for scientific and technical
development, leading to government support• Vannevar Bush described the bargain in ‘The
Endless Frontier’• WWII achievements: RADAR, A-bomb, missiles,
computers• US policy was a conscious application of the
Manhattan Project approach, for state direction of science
Space precursors
• Early pioneers were driven by dreams of space flight
• Bolsheviks were committed to material growth through science
• German military developed V-1, V-2 carried bombs to England, invulnerable ‘buzz bombs’
• US, USSR captured German experts• A-bomb led to Cold War: atomic weapons and
ICBMs 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 artificial
satellite• US plan selected NAS/Navy Vanguard over
Army/JPL Explorer (not to interfere with military)
• USSR plans not considered credible
Sputnik
• Announced after successful launch on 4 Oct 1957
• No US vehicle was ready then• Immediate alarm and danger! Sputnik had
immediate discontinuous effects• Free world looked to US for moral superiority
of liberal institution and its dominant military • Both threatened
• Sputnik launch after 100-th birthday of Tsiokolvsky, before 40-th anniversary of Russian revolution
• How had the Russians come so far? Interest in materialist progress; Totalitarian command economy; Effort to surpass technical achievements of capitalist states; technology serves progress!
• Sputnik was a famous victory expressing much that is good in Russian culture
• Von Braun had already shown multi-stage rockets capable to launch to orbit in 1954, but not yet demonstrated
• Solid state, miniaturization important because of limited rocket lift (James van Allen later told his student George Ludwig ‘use transistors’).
• Reliability also critical, along with magnetic recorders
US Response
• Meet the competition of direct military threat and to free enterprise and political freedom
• Vanguard launch 6 Dec 1957 failed spectacularly 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’