Word: sputniked
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...Sputnik and its effect on public opinion have transformed the thinking of the Democrat Congressmen" who only last year voted to cut budget requests for national defense...
...Braun hurried back to the dinner table, broke the news of Sputnik I, turned earnestly to Neil McElroy. "Sir," he said, "when you get back to Washington you'll find that all hell has broken loose. I wish you would keep one thought in mind through all the noise and confusion: we can fire a satellite into orbit 60 days from the moment you give us the green light." Army Secretary Wilber Brucker, who had accompanied McElroy, raised a hand of objection: "Not 60 days." Von Braun was insistent: "Sixty days." General Medaris settled it: "Ninety days." Neil McElroy...
Back in November, Nikita Khrushchev had observed condescendingly that America would inevitably have a Sputnik of its own before long. "We are waiting for it," he said. "There will be a community of Sputniks." In Rome, the Communist daily Paese Sera indicated it had noted Khrushchev's remarks and filed them away for future guidance. "The American baby moon," the paper said, "is now wheeling in the sky along with Sputnik II. We are sure Sputnik II has welcomed its young companion, saying: 'You are small, but you will grow.' Not even John Foster Dulles can keep...
Those who do see it as a faint, speeding star will notice that it does not wax and wane like the conspicuous rocket that accompanied Sputnik I. This is because its spin stabilization keeps it from tumbling. Its direction, like that of a free gyroscope, is fixed in space. As it rounds the earth, its axis points at the same distant star...
...including the burned-out rocket, is 80 in. long, 6 in. in diameter, and weighs 30.8 lbs. The satellite proper weighs 18.13 lbs.; of this, its steel outer skin weighs 7.5 lbs., and the rest, nearly 11 lbs., is the payload of instruments. These weights do not compare with Sputnik I (184 lbs. without its rocket) or Sputnik II (1,120 lbs. with dog and rocket), but the Explorer's instruments are so light and sophisticated that they may send as much information from space as their Russian rivals...