Word: sputnik
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Emmanuel G. Mesthene, executive director of the University Program on Technology and Society, called the present situation a "lean" period. "The availability of scientific funds goes in waves," he said. "Sputnik, for instance, led to a fat period and the reins were loosened. The war in Vietnam, on the other hand, with its increased defense spending, has led to a lean period. I do not see an increasing trend of tightening reins in government support. We are simply in a lean period...
There is some justice in the teachers' claim to power. Those now in charge of the schools, particularly in the big cities, have failed miserably-and teachers cannot be blamed for overcrowded classes, inept texts, pre-Sputnik curriculums. Even the injection of billions of dollars in federal funds, designed specifically to spur innovation, has largely bypassed the classroom teacher. Of some 700 federal grants awarded last year in Michigan, teachers were not consulted in 80% of the cases...
Hearts & Goofs. When it came to space work, McDonnell showed as much foresight as he did with jets. Correctly anticipating what was to come, Mr. Mac put 45 engineers to work on capsules months before the U.S.S.R.'s Sputnik started Washington on its race for the moon. With that much preparation, McDonnell easily won the competition to build the Mercury capsule. Then well-publicized goofs marred the early phases of the program; it was almost more than Perfectionist Mac could bear when NASA cameras detected a loose nut and a crumpled cigarette package during a zero-gravity test...
...Michigan. Shortly before Sputnik, he got Carnegie to sponsor a study that eventually led to the new math. He persuaded James Bryant Conant to undertake his probing look at U.S. education. He sent out three-man "Jeep teams" to investigate Africa because even then he could see that "it was a sleeping giant-in four years everyone would be crying for African experts...
...free of cant, though the standard obeisance is paid to Marx and Lenin. And along with a provocative article on the development of human talent is a silly suggestion that Moscow may replace Paris as the fashion capital of the world. Nevertheless, Editor in Chief Oleg Feofanov promises that Sputnik will not turn into another propaganda organ like Soviet Life, the other magazine directed...