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of facts pertaining to the Vanguard satellite, the Viking launch vehicle that would carry it, and the Patrick Proving Ground from which it would lift off. Four species of poisonous snakes, viewers were informed, inhabited the 15,000-acre facility. The surrounding mangrove swamps and scrub palmetto forests were home to the nearly extinct dusky seaside sparrow. The base itself, a former naval station, had been turned over to the air force in 1949 and was ideally suited to launch satellites because, at twenty-eight degrees north of the equator, its location offered the easiest shot into space.

Though missiles had been tested at the complex since the summer of 1950, December 4, 1957, was Cape Canaveral’s public unveiling, the first time most people had ever seen or heard of America’s gateway to the stars. What Cronkite and America did not see, however, was the condition of the Vanguard launch vehicle, which was out of range of network cameras. “The rocket looked unkempt, as if it had been hurried out of bed,” recalled the propulsion engineer Kurt Stehling. “It was only partly painted, frost covered its middle, and strips of black rubber wind spoilers dangled dispiritedly from its upper half.”

Thirty-mile-an-hour gusts lashed the rocket as the morning passed, a weather front moved in, and chilly journalists grew impatient. By late afternoon there was still no movement on the launchpad other than the howling wind. The reporters stomped their feet to ward away the cold and speculated as to the delay. A valve on the main booster’s liquid oxygen feed line had frozen shut, but this the press did not know. By dusk, impatience had given way to frustration and wagering on whether the mission would be scrubbed. Something had to be wrong. This was taking too long. Finally, at 10:30 PM, word reached reporters that the countdown had been aborted and would resume on Friday, December 6. The official reason for the postponement was wind. Cynics on Bird Watch Hill thought otherwise.

• • •

Though the American people were deprived of a launch on December 4, the fledgling ABC television network treated its viewers to another space spectacle that evening. Capitalizing on Vanguard mania, Walt Disney had scheduled the most ambitious and expensive installment of his “Man in Space” series to coincide with the launch date. As usual, Wernher von Braun hosted part of the show, titled “Mars and Beyond.” With Ernst Stuhlinger at his side, a slide rule in hand, his bright blue eyes flashing with almost hypnotic conviction, von Braun demonstrated how a spacecraft could reach the Red Planet. It couldn’t use conventional propellants, they informed viewers, because of the enormous amount of fuel required for the thirteen-month trip. “A small atomic reactor,” Stuhlinger said, pointing to the teardrop-shaped tip of a strange-looking model vehicle, “would turn silica oil into steam and drive turbines.” Like von Braun, Stuhlinger affected the efficiently no-nonsense appearance of what the Disney wardrobe department must have envisioned as the engineering look: pale blue dress shirt tucked into conservative gray slacks, no jacket, restrained tie. Slender and balding, with slightly pinched features, he seemed a suitably stern foil to the telegenically boyish von Braun, whose full head of hair, broad shoulders, and penetrating gaze were more befitting of a matinee idol than a mad scientist.

Mars must have seemed a long way off to those Americans who had sat by their radios and TV sets all day waiting for Vanguard to lift off. Yet von Braun sold the “electromagnetically-driven atomic spaceship” as if its flight was not only possible but inevitable. There was something mesmerizing about his infectious enthusiasm, his spare, purposeful movements, the scholarly self-confidence, even the paisley necktie. He had star quality.

If von Braun was at ease in the new medium of television, it was perhaps because his experience in narrating rocketry films dated back more than a decade. Disney viewers didn’t know about his wartime experiences, but the U.S. government had been