Word: stallnik
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WHILE last week's Vanguard explosion was blamed officially on "loss of thrust," there was no lack of thrusts at the U.S. Newspapers from Mexico City to Moscow, and at home as well, dubbed the dud a stallnik, latenik, flopnik, pfftnik, goofnik. For other press comment, ranging from derision to bitter disappointment, see JUDGMENTS & PROPHECIES...
...Worst Since Custer." News of the failure of TV3 was flashed out around the nation and the world. Impact: shock, scorn, derision. Almost instantly the U.S.'s tiny, grounded satellite got rechristened stallnik, flopnik, dudnik, puffnik, phutnik, oopsnik, goofnik, kaputnik and-closer to the Soviet original-sputternik. At the U.N., Soviet diplomats laughingly suggested that the U.S. ought to try for Soviet technical assistance to backward nations. An office worker in Washington burst into tears; a calypso singer on the BBC in London strummed a ditty about Oh, from America comes the significant thought/Their own little Sputnik...
...bombast-pricking headlines and jokes made by America's free world friends point right to the heart of the matter. The Viennese designation of "spätnik" (meaning "latenik") and the Mexican reference to "stallnik" are both gibes at the overblown way in which public relations men and the American press built a giant anticlimax by trying to create a climax where it was not normal for a climax to come-in the midst of a delicate experiment...
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