Word: sputniked
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Sputnik's Pulse. By then, the world's communication systems were already crackling with the story that the Russians had launched history's first man-made earth satellite, and scientists across the U.S. were being routed out by newspapers and colleagues. The Russians called it sputnik; it weighed 184.3 Ibs., they said, and was sending continuous radio signals (see SCIENCE...
Commercial radio stations, too, picked up sputnik's signals. "Listen now," said an NBC announcer, in a voice his listeners would not soon forget, "for the sound which forever more separates the old from the new." And over thousands of earthbound radios sounded the eerie beep . . . beep . . . beep from somewhere out in space...
Despite the official White House line that "the Soviet launching did not come as any surprise," highly surprised scientists and military men drew some quick lessons from sputnik's success. Items: ¶ To put the 184.3-lb. satellite in its orbit, the Russians had to have an operational ballistic missile driven by a rocket engine at least as big as the U.S.'s biggest and best; hence the Russians probably have a workable intercontinental ballistics missile...
...intelligence had no warning of the firing of the sputnik. ¶ U.S. policymakers probably have been seriously underestimating Russian scientific capability; in vital sectors of the technology race the U.S. may well have lost its precious lead...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9--Sputnik sped around the world on a steady course today, speaking to earthbound scientists with a strong new radio voice...