Apollo: The Race To The Moon

by Catherine Bly Cox

A small globe of metal with a few crude instruments weighing 184 pounds, Sputnik I was not much of a satellite by later standards. But it was the planet’s first artificial satellite, and it was not America’s. Two weeks later, the Russians compounded their triumph by orbiting Sputnik II, a much larger satellite with a dog named Laika aboard. Not only did Sputnik II carry the dog, which suggested that the Soviets were thinking about putting human beings into space, the final stage of the rocket had remained attached to the satellite—which meant, incredibly and ominously, that the Soviet rocket had managed to put a six-ton weight into earth orbit. The United States, on the other hand, was working on a grapefruit-sized satellite weighing three and a half pounds. Two months later, the Department of the Navy tried to launch this puny competitor to Sputnik in front of television and newspaper cameras from around the world. The Vanguard rocket being used for the launch rose four feet into the air, fell back, and crumpled onto the pad in a spectacular explosion. A few days later, the Soviet delegate to the United Nations inquired solicitously whether the United States was interested in receiving aid earmarked for underdeveloped countries.