Word: sputnik
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Dates: during 1957-1957
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Boulukos insisted that their scheme was not dreamed up on the spur of the moment. "We've been thinking about it ever since the first Sputnik was launched, and Armistice Day seemed like a logical time to send the wire," he said...
...second Soviet satellite, officially named 1957 Beta by International Geophysical Year authorities, is much more ambitious than 1957 Alpha (Sputnik I). According to Moscow, it weighs more than six times as much (1,120.8 Ibs.), and it circles on a higher orbit, reaching more than 1,000 miles above the earth at its highest point, and taking slightly longer (1 hr. 43.7 min.) to complete a circuit. The instrumented section is not designed to separate from the casing of the final-stage rocket, as Sputnik I did. This suggests that the rocket can be deliberately turned tail forward...
...given conditioned reflexes that make her take food and water when a bell rings. Other instruments observe cosmic rays, solar ultraviolet and X rays, temperature and air pressure. A radio transmitter sends coded data back to earth on the same frequencies (40.002 and 20.005 megacycles) that were used by Sputnik I before its batteries died. Professor Boris V. Ukarkin of the Soviet Academy of Sciences promised that the large size of Sputnik II would make it easier to see than Sputnik I, and, even though it travels higher, it should stay in sight considerably longer...
...scientists have figured that if nine-tenths of the weight of Sputnik I were invested in additional fuel, the remainder (18.3 Ibs.) would reach the moon. By the same reasoning, the launching rockets of the second Soviet satellite could put 112 Ibs. on the moon. This is enough weight allowance for a powerful atom bomb, which would make brilliant fireworks if it exploded on the darkened face of the moon, and might stir up a conspicuous storm in the dust that covers its surface...
...Sputnik days, the case of Private Ernest Shult, 24, would probably have been laughed off as a bit of routine Army bungling. Gangling, brown-haired Shult, assistant to a professor at Southern Illinois University, seemed to be just one more recruit when he reported to Fort