Published October 2017
On the night of 4th October 1957, radios around the world broadcast a ‘beep, beep, beep’ and the following morning people woke up to a ‘second moon’ orbiting the Earth.
This month hails 60 years since Sputnik 1 became the first object to reach space and to orbit the Earth, sparking a decade-long Space Race between Soviet Russia and the USA. Although the Apollo 11 Moon-landing in 1969 remains a definitive moment in the Space Race, the journey to that point really started with the quest to launch a satellite.
Sputnik was the advent and the catalyst for this race. Its story is one full of impatient politicians, ambitious scientists, setbacks, tantrums and worldwide fanaticism.
At its forefront, a man. The chief designer of the Soviet space programme: Sergei Korolev. He would go on to launch the first dog, first man and first woman into space. A man whose untimely death in 1967 may have cost the Soviets the race to the Moon.
You do not have to like the Soviet Russians to admire the ingenuity of Korolev, much in the same way that you credit the German’s for their V2 rocket technology, knowing that its first use was to bomb London in 1944 during WW2. Out of the darkest moments for man, arose some of the brightest for humanity.
We start our story in the early 1950s; the US and Soviets were competing to be the first to arm themselves with intercontinental ballistic missiles that could fire nuclear weapons across the oceans. Sending a satellite into space was initially nothing more than a show of power.
In 1953, when the US announced that they would launch a satellite in 1957, the Soviets responded in kind. And to be honest, no one cared save for the scientists working on it. For the public, reaching space was still in the realm of science fiction and fanciful dreams. For the politicians, reaching space was only worthy if done in the pursuit of nuclear missiles.
Korolev’s plans for Sputnik were given approval in 1956, although it was overshadowed by the R7 rocket development (this would lead onto the birth of the Soyuz rocket). In “On the Operations to create an artificial Earth satellite”, it is referred to simply as Object D.
While the US experienced set backs to build a rocket powerful enough to launch a satellite, the Soviets had their own issues.
Object D was simply too heavy, reported the engineers working at a remote factory away from Korolev’s main site. Some serious thrust power would be required to carry Object D. They would need more time.
But time was not something they had. Korolev’s constant paranoia that the US would launch a satellite any day now stressed him immensely. He ordered Object D be brought to him at TyuraTam – the R7’s development site and launch complex – so that he could personally work on it.
The original design for Object D was in fact what we now know as Sputnik 3 (it looks a bit like a Dalek). On board, it was equipped with instruments to make observations of Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field.
This was all stripped away, leaving only the basics: a reflective, shiny aluminium sphere, no larger than a beach ball, with two simple transmitters, batteries, a thermo-regulator and two pairs of antennae. All it had to do was send a signal to Earth so that people on the ground knew that it was coming from the little sphere hanging above their heads. Sputnik Proteishy was born.
The original launch date of May 1957 and a string of failed test launches of the R7 through the summer months (5 in total) almost cost Korolev the programme. Given one final chance, Korolev and his team managed a successful launch of the R7 in August 1957. Next up: the launch of Sputnik.
On 4th October at 22.28, Sputnik transmitted its famous beep signal to the world.
Russia continued to sleep. The then Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, on being awoken by a phone call, told Korolev to go back to bed. Yet the rest of the world stood to attention. That very evening, US politicians and Wernher Von Braun – the German scientist who had been working for the US space programme to launch their own satellite – were sipping cocktails at a party when they got the phone call informing of their defeat.
Sputnik was plastered across every front page of the newspapers. People went crazy for souvenirs, they were bewildered and thrilled in equal part. Intelligence teams tried in vain to de-crypt the “beep” signal, only to be even more humiliated when they realised that it was just a simple beep.
In the UK, Sputnik saved Jodrell Bank’s Mark I radio telescope from being decommissioned when everyone realised that it was the only telescope in the world sophisticated enough to track Sputnik’s path.
Not only had the Soviets won the first race to space, but they had flaunted their technology by sending up a little bauble on the back of a rocket that could easily carry a heavier payload. It was like a cat licking its paws of cream.
It is certainly an achievement that still warrants celebration, not of Soviet Russia but of the ambition and drive of humankind to aim for the stars.
As cheesy as that sounds, wonder at what brought that phrase to life. From that moment, our exploration of space accelerated and has never since been the same. In the decades after, we turned dreams of flying spacecraft into real Shuttles, and short orbital trips of men and women, into a permanent habitat of space stations Salyut, Mir, and the ISS. We turned from war to international collaboration, despite the many political issues and cultural walls.
As the private space organisations compete to be the first, as we look again at the Moon with a longing desire to once again set footprints on its surface, we should remember and marvel at what happened the last time – the first time – we really became a space-faring species.
This article was published on my blog in October 2017.
Nisha Beerjeraz-Hoyle 