What is it in Space-Age Russian? by Michael S. Vartanoff

Bill after World War II, until the creation of the Department of Education in 1979. A generation 0f students benefited as educational programs nationwide received this infusion of new federal funding, an investment in education second only to the G.I. Another was the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which appropriated millions for in science and mathematics education at all levels, from the elementary school to postgraduate. The creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was one. Sputnik signaled a perceived inferiority of American technological know-how, and fear prompted all manner of actions deemed necessary to “catch up” to the Soviet Union in space.

After all, if this adversary could launch a satellite over our heads, it could also bring a nuclear weapon down on us. Scientists and engineers congratulated their Soviet counterparts, but political and cultural leaders called attention to the menacing significance of the achievement. In the United States the Space Age dawned with a mixture of excitement and worry.

(Click on the photos at left to see sample images from the Smithsonian book, After Sputnik: 50 Years of the Space Age). Belief in that destiny, for all its elusiveness, has motivated tens of thousands of people over the last 50 years to invent the machines and instruments and chart the course for planetary exploration and, perhaps, migration. Finally, it suggested to many that the destiny of humanity rested in the cosmos rather than on Earth. It also established spaceflight as evidence of progress and forward thinking among the nations of the world. It reversed the image of the Soviet Union as a backwater and placed the country on an international footing near to that of the United States. It was a first step beyond this planet, and we have never known a time since when there has not been some human-made object in Earth orbit. Navy admiral characterized it, but it carried on its orbital trajectory a symbolism far beyond its size. Sputnik 1, launched from the Soviet Union’s rocket test site near Tyuratam, Kazakhistan, was a mere 184-pound “hunk of iron almost anybody could launch,” as a U.S. With the launch of a basketball-size satellite on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union ushered in the “Space Age” and changed the world.

What is it in Space-Age Russian? by Michael S. Vartanoff