lear that the human organism and man-made technology could survive the kinds of speeds that would be required to propel materials into space.
But 1957 was still the really decisive year. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched a radio satellite, called Sputnik (Russian for "fellow traveler"). The 184-pound unit broadcast only a radio signal from its transmitter (Wolfe, 1979; Crouch, 1999). But that beep received overwhelming press coverage in the US, which at the time was locked in the Cold War. As if that "blow," which left Americans "stunned and bewildered," were not enough, scarcely one month later, on November 3, 1957, Sputnik 2 was launched, as it were manned by a passenger, a dog (Crouch, 1999, p. 142).
The American technological response appears to have been driven by reasons of national pride and competitiveness. Unfortunately, the American technology itself could not accomplish what the Soviet technology had. On December 3, 1957, a highly public launch of a rocket known as the Vanguard TV-3, which was intended t
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