Sputnik Sputnik was the first official Earth satellite. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the unmanned Sputnik satellite into space, putting a big question mark to American privacy, safety, technology, and military warfare. The satellite was visible all around Earth and its radio pulses could be detected from anywhere. Sputnik incited fear in the American leaders as well as the majority of the population, but not only because of the imagined implications of being spied on or being crushed if the satellite should fall from space. The launch of Sputnik led the United States to question its position of “technological superiority to Soviet Russia, and left government officials, politicians, scientists, and educators scrambling to find way to close the gap.” Sputnik 1 orbited the earth for 57 days before the gravity of earth pulled it from space.
Sputnik was an experiment to show that artificial satellites could be made. Today thousands of artificial satellites orbit the Earth the natural satellite completes one orbit a month. Present day communications satellites transmit radio and television programs to locations around the world. The kerosene-powered Sputnik weighed 84 kb (184 pounds), travelled at over 28,000 kilometers per hour (17,000 miles per hour) and continued to orbit until 4 January 1958. Although it did little more than transmit a monotonous beep, the successful orbit of the beach ball-sized satellite became a seminal moment in the twentieth century.
Since there are currently thousands of satellites orbiting in the skies above, it is difficult to realize how earth-shattering the Sputnik actually was. In