![]() had fallen behind in these pursuits.īut before the Sputnik 1 fun was over, a Baltimore wag, who was also a Glenn L. Suddenly there was a greater emphasis on science, engineering and math, because somehow or other, as a nation, the U.S. Sputnik 1 also permanently altered the national educational landscape. and Russia that culminated in 1969 when Apollo 11 delivered two astronauts onto the moon’s surface. Its lingering effect was to further Cold War anxieties and set off a 12-year space race between the U.S. 4, 1958, when it burned up reentering the earth’s atmosphere. Sputnik 1 continued making its elliptical orbits of the Earth until Jan. The best way to deflate the propaganda value of Sputnik is to knock it out of the air.” In subsequent remarks to The Sun, Butler, a World War I artillery veteran who should have known better, thundered: “I would like to see our armed forces just say to them, ‘You put them up and we’ll shoot them down.’ I think we’ll come to that someday, and it’s not too far off. In a radio interview on WFBR-AM, Butler said: “I would like to see our armed forces shoot down Sputnik II.” “Senator John Marshall Butler believes the United States should take a good aim and shoot Russian sputniks out of the skies as fast as they appear,” The Sun reported. John Marshall Butler, a Republican from Maryland, a former partner in the Baltimore law firm of Venable, Baetjer and Howard, and a rabid anti-Communist, had an idea, albeit a technically impracticable one, given the times. ![]() Eisenhower stewed about Sputnik as it streaked across the firmament, U.S. ambassador, to comment was “an intercontinental outer-space raspberry to a decade of American pretensions that the American way of life was a gilt-edged guarantee of our national superiority.”īaltimoreans craned their necks into the night sky or dawn’s early light hoping to witness the celestial visitor as it sailed 560 miles above the city safe from ground attack. ![]() Sputnik 1’s radio emitted a constant “beep, beep, beep” sound, which led Clare Boothe Luce, a writer, politician and U.S. had been beaten into space by what many considered a backward nation. launched Sputnik 1, a 184-pound, 23-inch diameter aluminum ball, which was the first man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.Īnother dimension that sent Americans in the predawn hours into backyards, onto roofs, and into parks armed with binoculars, telescopes and the naked eye, hoping to catch a glimpse of the intruder that orbited the Earth every 96 minutes, was the reality that the U.S. Suddenly, an insular sense and security of place was shattered when the U.S.S.R. Off the South Carolina coast, two F-22 fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base fired a Sidewinder air-to-air missile into the intruder, successfully bringing it down into choppy Atlantic waters.Īn event of similar proportions that caused a case of worldwide jitters transpired in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into space, which like the Chinese balloon, was perceived to be an airborne intrusive spy. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden gave the order to shoot down a balloon, termed a “weather balloon” by Chinese officials. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |