The launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957 was a traumatic event for the USA and much of the western world. For years there had been an unspoken assumption that the Russians were dark and backward people, and that all new initiatives in science and technology occurred, almost as a natural law, in ‘the West’. Disbelief was widespread. ‘What I say is truth, and truth is what I say’, that popular saying of the 1980s, had its adherents in the 1950s too, and they assured the world that Sputnik 1 was just propaganda and was not really in orbit at all.

My view of the event was different. For several years we had been showing in theory how ballistic rockets could be turned into satellite launchers by adding a small upper stage to produce the necessary extra velocity. The USSR had launched an intercontinental rocket in August 1957, and little extra velocity would be needed to attain orbit. So it would be quite easy for the USSR to launch a small satellite like Sputnik 1, which was a sphere 58 cm in diameter of mass 84 kg with four long aerials (Fig. 2.1). The real surprise was the final-stage rocket that accompanied Sputnik 1 into orbit. The rocket appeared much brighter than the pole star as it crossed the night sky, and seemed likely to be at least 20 m long, far larger than anything contemplated in our paper-studies of satellites: the final-stage rocket for our reconnaissance satellite was less than 5 m long.