Do you remember going out after dark in October, 1957 and watching Sputnik going over, blinking??
dreher
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A horrible national disgrace, at least according to the adults I knew. A serious PR coup that Nikita Khrushchev managed to pull off. The adults were so mad that the backward Russians had got into outer space before the U.S. but Nikita made sure its orbit went right over the continental U.S. thereby rubbing the U.S.'s nose in the poop! I remember I could stand in my backyard in NW Ohio after dark and watch Sputnik's blinking lights go across the sky.
I was 10 years old. {Was I ever that young?} The national embarrassment was very real and I well remember that the atomic bomb drills greatly increased. These were the drills where all of us kids had to crawl under our school desks wrapping our arms over our heads. This was meant to save our lives if the crazy Russians launched nukes on us. I remember a lot of fear on the parts of both adults and the other kids. For reasons I don't understand, I wasn't one of those who were afraid.
This ended up being a true "tempest in a teacup" as Sputnik's batteries died, the orbit degraded and Sputnik fell back into the atmosphere and burned up in late December. So Sputnik was in orbit less than 90 days.
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I remember watching Sputnik. I was a 6 year old kid in Atlanta. The Commies beat us into space!
I was two in 1957 . Do remember the nukedrills in school . My town , Goldsboro , NC was/ is home to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base . It was home to nuke equipped B-52 bombers (SAC) One plane was always on 5 minute alert . Five minutes after receiving the call they would be airborne with fully armed nukes on there’s way to Russia. . As we were next door to the base , I don’t think hiding under a desk would do much good
If you saw something blinking, it may have been the rocket's second stage, but not Sputnik, which carried no lights and was too small to be seen by the naked eye at its altitude. The second stage had reflective panels to help with visual tracking, but it flew well behind Sputnik itself. Sputnik carried a radar transmitter that beeped. The beeps were regulated to reveal certain mechanical and scientific measurements, and could be heard by amateur radio buffs.
Okay Rocky, I remember all the adults being very pizzed and I remember seeing blinking lights. I will concede some of my timing might be off as these are pretty much 65 year old memories. So you are saying Sputnik didn't blink. So what did I see that did blink.
Do remember the nuke drills??
I was three years old in ‘57. I started 1st grade in Alexandria, Va. I remember ducking under my desk during drills. Like that would have helped a half mile from the Capitol.
year before my time
I came into the world in 1957 so I missed out ,
but from what I have learned it did light a fire under the USA
my mom and dad ( well the entire family ) never even talked about such things as science or rockets or politics for that matter ( except dad who dis liked every politician LOL , from best I can remember he did not vote but liked to complain about them )
I do remember in grade school being taught ( even touring a few ) where all the fall out shelters in town were and of course duck and cover ,
Seven years old, Albany, New York. I just remember seeing a steady light, no blinking. It must have been at a pretty low orbit.
Yes, I was 10 yrs. old and did see the blinking. Now you tell me it wasn’t Sputnik?
Rocky, you are a major kill-joy! Shame on you!
In the summer of '63 when I was 7, my dad would take me to work with him. He was a night watchman at a rural natural gas pumping station when there was a union strike going on in the big city (Detroit) some 280 miles away. There were bomb threats made so guards were set up everywhere these stations were located.
My memories of this time period stay well with me as having alone time with dad were priceless moments coming from a family with 11 siblings. I would sit with him in lawn chairs next to the fence and star gaze much of the night. I'd soon fall asleep and he would put me to bed in the old VW bus for the night.
One night he woke me up and was quite excited. He wanted me to see "Sputnik" as it moved across the sky! It was pretty cool seeing my first satellite, and back then they were rare indeed. Of coarse the name Sputnik was so engulfed in my fathers mind, it is what he called all satellites back then.
Yes, I remember being in my back yard with my uncle and having him point out Sputnik as it passed overhead.
You were seeing an orbiting object, but it was the reflective panels on the Soyuz second stage. The actual Sputnik would have been ahead of what you saw but invisible. That takes nothing away from the experience, and you can still say you saw "Sputnik" in the broader sense. The purpose of my probably pedantic post is to point out that Sputnik did not have any blinking lights on it, only a beeping radio.
The real reason why Sputnik made our folks poop their pants was the fact that if you can get an object to orbit, you can get a heavier object into a ballistic path to hit anywhere on the planet - meaning nukes.
I remember it well and never saw it or anything else, until much later.
I was -10 years old in 1957, so no, I didn't see it.
I have seen the International Space Station go over my house. Pretty cool.
I was 10 in '57 but don't remember seeing Sputnik. I do remember that we didn't have any hide-under-the-desk drills. The threat of a nuclear attack on a seven-student, one-room country school in rural north-central Iowa was pretty minimal, barring a badly misguided missile.
CONELRAD,Civil defense fall out shelters.Schools taught us the Russians may nuke us any minute.
I grew up between St. Louis and Kansas City. You bet we got under the desks. Good thing we were well trained, no doubt that would have saved us. I can remember having nuclear war night mares into high school.
We did the "under the desk" drills at Ashford Park School in Atlanta in 1960. That was scary.
I do remember being in the station wagon in October 1962, coming back home from Pop Warner football practice as an 11 year old kid, and I remember the guy on the radio saying that things were heating up in Cuba and there was a chance for war.
Now we know how close we came to nuclear war over Cuba. The generals wanted to invade. The US didn't know that the Cubans, besides the nuclear missiles, also had nuclear artillery, several dozen of these pieces. We get 100,000 Marines on the beach, and Fidel fires 20 nuke artillery shells from 10 miles away, and we get 100,000 dead Marines in the span of 10 minutes.
"Hello, World War 3."
We didn't learn until decades later about the nuke artillery pieces.