Sputnik Research Paper

There are currently over a thousand operating satellites currently orbiting earth. That’s over two times as many daily used buildings on IU Bloomington’s Campus according to the official website. While people born into and have lived on earth are accepting satellites as a regular object that they interact with in their daily lives. It hasn’t always been this way. When you look up the first satellite that launched into space you will find that the first was the Sputnik 1, launched on October 4, 1957. Scroll three results down to read the NASA article, “A thermometer, a battery, and a radio inside of a metal ball. It may sound like a high school science experiment, but in 1957, it captured the attention of the world. That metal ball was Sputnik 1”. This brings some insight into the conflict of the origin of satellites.

The parties had been competing to see who had the most advanced technologies for atleast a decade. The United States had been spying on the USSR with their U2 spy planes throughout the 50s and observed that they were making great technological advances and hired three to four times as many Soviet scientists as there were American. The soviets launched Sputnik in October of 57 which gave birth to the “Crisis of Confidence” of Sputnik (PBS). Americans feared what the Soviets could do with their satellite orbiting and functional. This spurred the United States to get their technology that they have been working on to orbit. This rushed mentality created by American media and the red scare led the Vanguard TV3 rocket to an arguably premature