_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [1]
Like the American group, the Russians developed and worked on machines to lift nuclear warheads and stuff off our planet, and on the evening of October 4, 1957, one of their creations, a large white rocket called R–7, was being fueled for what some would call the single most important event of the twentieth century. Nearby, inside a steel-lined concrete bunker, an intense middle-aged man named Sergei Korolev was at work. His job, as the chief rocket engineer for the USSR, was to orchestrate the stop-and-go countdown. But unlike his American counterpart, Wernher von Braun, Korolev had the full blessing and support of his country’s communist government.
Cape Canaveral. In the 1950s and 1960s, dozens of rockets and missiles were launched from this real Disney World. (NASA).
While Korolev had been chasing the goal of space flight at breakneck speed, Dr. von Braun had been pleading with President Dwight David Eisenhower to let him launch an Earth satellite. Only the year before, von Braun had moved his rocket and satellite to its launch pad without permission. He was going to launch it anyway, pretending that the satellite accidentally went into orbit. But Lieutenant Colonel Asa Gibbs, Cape Canaveral’s commander, ordered the satellite launcher returned to its hangar. Colonel Gibbs cared more about his ass and making full colonel than he did history.
Now, with von Braun’s rocket in storage, Sergei Korolev’s R–7 was fueled, and his launch team was ready to send a satellite into orbit and send Russia into the history books.
“Gotovnosty dyesyat minut.”
Ten minutes.
Steel braces that held the rocket in place were folded down, and the last power cables between Earth and the rocket fell away.
“Tri…
“Dva…
“Odin…”
“Zashiganive!”
IGNITION!
Flame created a monstrous sea of fire. It ripped into steel and concrete and blew away the night. It sent orange daylight rolling across the steppes of Kazakhstan, quickly followed by a thunderous train of sound that shook all that stood within its path.
Sputnik, Earth’s first artificial satellite, was sent into orbit on October 4, 1957. (NASA).
R–7 climbed from its self-created daylight on legs of flaming thrust and soon appeared as if it were an elongated star racing across a black sky. It fled from view and left darkness to once again swallow its launch pad as it became just another distant star over the Aral Sea.
While others strained to see the final flicker of the rocket, Korolev was interested only in the readouts. He sat transfixed by the tracking information streaming into the control room. The data were perfect. He was intently interested in each engine’s shutdown. Separation of each stage had to be clean. And when the world’s first man-made satellite slipped into Earth orbit, he permitted himself to rejoice with the others.
It would be called Sputnik (fellow traveler), and ninety-six minutes later, it completed its first trip around our planet, streaking over its still-steaming launch pad, broadcasting a lusty beep-beep-beep.
A dream had been realized.
Wild celebrations exploded across the Soviet Union.
In the NBC newsroom in New York, editor Bill Fitzgerald had just finished writing his next scheduled newscast when the wire-service machines began clanging. The persistent noise rattled most everything. Fitzgerald ran to the main Associated Press wire and began reading.
BULLETIN
London, October 4th (AP)
Moscow radio said tonight that the Soviet Union has launched an Earth satellite.
The satellite, silver in color, weighs 184 pounds and is reported to be the size of a basketball.
Moscow radio said it is circling the globe every 96 minutes, reaching as far out as 569 miles as it zips along at more than 17,000 miles per hour.
Fitzgerald froze. He didn’t want to believe his fully written newscast had just been flushed down the toilet.
“Damn!” he cursed in protest before hurrying across the