Launch of USSR Satellite Sputnik - 50th Anniversary of the 1950's Space Race
Where
were you fifty years ago this week? Not even born, you say, or just a
child, perhaps? Looking back half a century ago, in October 1957, some
interesting things were happening.
In 1957,
Detroit had reached its zenith in automobile design. As the model year
changed, the ultimate-classic Chevrolet Bel Air Two-door Hardtop was about to give way to the bloated and reviled quad-headlight 1958 Chevy. It was a case of Old Energy
(longer, lower, wider; bigger, better, more) trumping the elegance of
the smaller, lighter, faster-looking 1957. Everyone wanted the 1957. No
one wanted the 1958. American automotive history then started a long
march backward that is unchecked today.
In
addition, that October, we awakened one morning to something called
“The Space Race” in the 1950's. The USSR or “The Russians” as we liked
to call them had launched the first human-made Earth-orbiting
satellite. They gave it the anti-euphonious name Sputnik. We had heard
of “Spud Nuts”, but not Sputniks.
After
years of hype about the “Rocket Oldsmobile” and watching spacecraft-like
tail fins sprout on U.S. automobiles, the Russians had trumped all of
Madison Avenue’s tricks with one rocket launch. Their rocket and its
satellite were real.
Detroit took several years to fight back. In 1963, Chrysler Corporation named a high-performance version of the Plymouth Belvedere the “Plymouth Satellite”. If the U.S. could not lead in technology, we could at least lead in concept co-option.
Detroit took several years to fight back. In 1963, Chrysler Corporation named a high-performance version of the Plymouth Belvedere the “Plymouth Satellite”. If the U.S. could not lead in technology, we could at least lead in concept co-option.
During the midterm election campaign of 2006, I had the pleasure of visiting the New Mexico Space Museum in Alamogordo, New Mexico. To my great surprise, I discovered a sparkling-clean Sputnik hanging from the ceiling of the museum. Scientists are a clubby lot. It turns out that there were several Sputniks held in reserve by the Russian Space authority. When a former museum director befriended the Russian creator of the Sputnik, the Russian responded by sending one to the Alamogordo museum as a gift.
Some say
that the Space Race was all about intercontinental ballistic missiles
and others say it was more about exploration of space, as our “last
frontier”. I believe that the truth lies somewhere in-between. Today,
it is easy to forget how fearful and inferior the Russians felt as they
contemplated the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.
According
to some experts, the U.S. later had the ability to vaporize the
Soviet (and perhaps all) civilization at the press of a button. Mutual
assured destruction
was the term that Henry Kissinger so warmly used. In 1957, however,
that first Russian satellite launch gave U.S. residents a Cold War shot of anxiety like none we had ever felt before.
After the
1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, plant life there often mutated
spontaneously, creating some bizarre effects. Looking at the
accompanying photo of White Sands plants, do you suppose that the
Trinity nuclear blast may have caused these once-small plants grow to
their current towering proportions?
History can be fun. The U.S. started the “nuclear age”
near Alamogordo in 1945. The Russians counter-punched with Sputnik
twelve years later. The U.S. hit back hard six years later with the
Plymouth Satellite.
Meanwhile
the Japanese, who were the unlucky recipients of the second U.S.
nuclear bomb at Hiroshima, were busy studying automotive technology and
design. Biding their time, they later walked away with automotive
supremacy. Plymouth is gone. The USSR is gone. Now we are in the “Age of
Toyota”.
Postscript - English Pravda.ru, October 5, 2007 Headline "Japan - Satellite Reaches Lunar Orbit", a first for an Asian nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment