The space race begins
A great deal of international prestige is tied up with the impending dispatch into space of the first two artificial satellites. The Soviet Union and the United States are the two contestants in this race to display technical prowess.
Although they have revealed almost no information about their intended satellite programme, the Soviets now seem confident that they will be able to project an aluminium sphere, about the size of a football, 300 or 400 miles into space some weeks or even months before the Americans manage to launch theirs. In the meantime plans are being made for the second trial launching 鈥� any day now 鈥� of the Vanguard multi-stage rocket which will carry the American satellite on high.
Advertisement
The interest of these two powers in sending satellites speeding at 18,000 miles an hour across the skies is not entirely innocent. The flight of the satellites will undoubtedly provide much information of value to the pure scientists; but both the Soviet Union and the United States are vitally interested in the development of inter-continental ballistic missiles, and one of the most difficult problems in the development of these long-range weapons is to persuade them to re-enter the atmosphere safely from outer space. The circling satellites will give much information that is useful to the missile engineers in calculating the conditions the rocket will meet as it starts on its destructive downward plunge.
Although this International Geophysical Year will help to promote the research done in nations throughout the whole world, however small, most of the glamour and almost all the military interest seems certain to be centred on the satellite programmes of the two great powers. It is very likely that, in scientific terms, 1957 will be remembered as the year that humans launched their first forays into outer space.
From The New 杏吧原创, 18 April 1957