Now that Sputnik's golden anniversary is here, it's worth recapping just what it was about this alien-looking object that made such a big impression on the public.
Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union on October 4th 1957, and over the following 93 days it orbited the Earth around 1400 times, before burning up on re-entering the atmosphere on 4th January 1958.
It certainly looked the part - a shiny metal ball containing two transmitters, with four whisker-like antennas protruding from its surface, it could easily have been a spare prop from the War of the Worlds set.
Sputnik originally had a long list of tasks to perform, such as measuring the density of the atmosphere, recording solar radiation, magnetic fields, cosmic rays and so on. However as time wore on, and the U.S. drew closer in the race to launch the world's first artificial satellite, this list was abandoned in favour of one basic task - to simply get up there and orbit the Earth.
This it did, to unnerving effect. The fact that it was visible to the naked eye for millions of Americans (and audible to anyone with a shortwave receiver) led to what became known as the Sputnik crisis. Mainland American airspace had never been intruded upon, even through two world wars, so to have this odd metallic insect moving intently through the night sky felt like a violation to some. The Soviet press was quick to pick up on this, reporting in Pravda that the U.S. was "showing signs of hysteria." Not all Americans were quivering with techno-fear of course - one restaurant saw the funny side and created a Sputnik sandwich, which featured an olive with four protruding toothpick antennas.
An event of this size could not go past without a few alternative theories arising. One of the more fanciful was that Sputnik had not in fact burned up on re-entry, but had ended up in pieces in a back yard in Encino, California. One Earl Thomas claimed that as he was leaving his home to go to work, he noticed something glowing beneath a tree in his yard. The source turned out to be several pieces of plastic tubing, which he said matched structural diagrams of the Sputnik 1 satellite:
These parts are now on exhibition at the Beat Museum in San Franciso in a show titled What remained of Sputnik?
50th Anniversary articles:
Arthur C Clarke remembers Sputnik In this interview Clarke recalls his delight at the news of Sputnik's first orbits: "Our theories and speculations had suddenly become reality!" He also reveals that his 1952 book The Exploration of Space was used to convince President Kennedy that it was possible to go to the Moon.
Sputnik spares A Texas space memorabilia collector on his authentic spare Sputnik
Mission to Mars BBC news looks at the significance of Sputnik, and reports on the recent £6 billion budget given to the Russian space program, with a possible plan to send a team to Mars.
Video:
"Reds launch first space satellite"
Take off
Radio:
Ken Hollings and Thomas Dolby present Born Under Sputnik, a discussion of the impact of the satellite on the 20th Century, with background sounds selected by Fortean Times contributor Mark Pilkington. The show is broadcast oat 8pm on 4th October on 104.4fm in London, or via the Resonance FM website
