"The Beep Heard Round the World," M.E. Online Exclusive, Sept. 21, 2007

for 9/21/07

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The Beep Heard 'Round the World

From the clear, cool October sky 50 autumns ago came a sound that couldn't have been less monumental. It was a simple series of beeps, capable of being heard by anyone with a ham radio set. Yet those beeps and the machine that made them were history-making, and touched off a chain of events that has transformed the planet.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

From a missile range in what is now Kazakhstan, technicians working for the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1—the world's first artificial satellite—into orbit on Oct. 4, 1957. Every 98 minutes, Sputnik, which looked like a whiskered aluminum beach ball, circled the globe. The Space Age had been ushered in.

Influential for its size, Sputnik I without its antennas could fit into the trunk of a family car.

Since the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had been locked in a competitive rivalry that, on occasion, flared up into serious conflict. But even when American troops weren't battling Soviet allies in Korea or Russian tanks weren't crushing pro-Western protestors in Hungary, the potential for the Cold War turning hot was never far from public consciousness. American schoolchildren were taught to duck under their desks in the event of an atomic bomb attack, and space alien movies at the drive-in drew on the fears of a communist invasion.

Until the late 1950s, both sides relied on fleets of heavy bombers to carry their nuclear weapon payloads. But drawing on captured German designs (and, often, scientists) U.S. and Soviet militaries were developing missiles capable of delivering deadly weapons quickly and reliably. The same technology could be used to deliver an object into Earth orbit.

An 18-month period stretching over 1957 and 1958 was designated as the International Geophysical Year and was intended to spur worldwide exploration of the Earth. The Eisenhower administration announced in 1955 that it would attempt to launch a satellite using civilian-developed technology in conjunction with IGY. The Soviets, in a display of one-upmanship typical of the Cold War, made a decision to beat the Americans into orbit. Unlike the American effort, the Soviets were going to repurpose a military missile for the job, and most of the work was done in secret.

Launched in secret from a missile range in present-day Kazakhstan, Sputnik started the Space Age in October 1957.

The first satellite was to be an ambitious scientific probe, weighing more than a ton and carrying an array of instruments designed to study magnetic fields and charged particles beyond the Earth's atmosphere. But difficulties in putting together such a complex satellite prompted the design team to opt for something far simpler. Sputnik 1 (the name means "fellow traveler") was small; without its antennae it could fit into the trunk of a compact car. The 183-pound sphere was equipped with two radio transmitters and pressure and temperature gauges. The body was filled with nitrogen gas as a crude micrometeorite detector-if the shell were punctured, the gas would leak out, affecting the temperature and pressure readings.

The satellite was launched in secret to an altitude of 560 miles, where it completed an elliptical orbit every 98 minutes, speeding at 18,000 miles per hour. Americans heard about the launch only after the fact and then could glean details only from the vague statements the TASS news agency portioned out. A New York Times reporter, William Jordan, broke the story for the newspaper, although he had to rely mainly on the stale-sounding official statements to tell the story. In announcing their feat, the Soviets' statements of the time said the world could see how the new socialist society had turned even the most daring of man's dreams into a reality.

Even without the nationalistic puffery, Sputnik was a sensation. Observers with binoculars scanned the dawn skies to spot the satellite. Amateur radio operators could tune to the right frequency to hear Sputnik's signal as it passed overhead.

There were security considerations, of course: Many experts feared that nuclear warheads could be put into Earth orbit, to hang over the heads of one's enemies like the Sword of Damocles. For many in the U.S., however, the launch of Sputnik was a humiliation. To coincide with the anniversary of the Soviet Revolution, Sputnik 2, carrying a live dog, was launched less than a month later. (The dog apparently died within a few hours in orbit from heat and stress.) Meanwhile, the publicized launch of the American Vanguard was moved up to December 1957. The grapefruit-size payload was sent only a few yards as the rocket exploded on the launch pad.

In addition to Sputnik 2 and Vanguard, there were 13 more launch attempts within 12 months of the launch of Sputnik 1. Seven of those launches were failed American attempts, but the U.S. did get four satellites into orbit. The Soviets, however, had launched the original Sputnik satellite.

Designed and constructed in little more than a month, Sputnik 1 was a "simplified" probe, containing only temperature and pressure gauges, batteries, and a radio transmitter.

The Soviets held onto their lead early in the Space Race. The Luna 1 probe flew past the moon in early 1959; later that year, another probe photographed the moon's far side. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, when his spacecraft Vostok I entered orbit. It was during that trip that he was promoted from senior lieutenant to major in the Soviet Air Force. (He would die an ironic death seven years later when his MIG crashed during a training exercise.) It would take a decade for the U.S., with the success of its Apollo program, to be seen as the clear leader in space technology.

There is no underestimating the influence of the Soviets' first artificial moon. But Sputnik sent out ripples that have reached the edge of our solar system. It is the forerunner of all that mankind has sent out of the Earth's atmosphere. It led to Voyager, which has probably traveled farther than any other man-made object, and to today's symbol of international cooperation in the skies, the International Space Station, which is the product of cooperation among many countries, including the United States and Russia.

Fifty years after the first Sputnik left the ground, astronauts from the United States and from Russia live and work together in space. The idea would have been anathema to Americans and Russians a half-century ago, when the world was transfixed—and transformed—by a constant string of beeps.

What did the beeps mean? They were a coded message, the length and timing providing pressure and temperature data. Who could have believed that simple telemetry could carry so much meaning?