Sputnik: 50 Years Later

"When Sputnik first went over, Americans were expecting to have it fall from the sky," said Curtis. "It had a very practical impact."

The launch powerfully demonstrated the ability of missiles, which were under development in the United States and the Soviet Union, to carry objects beyond Earth's atmosphere.

"There's no question that (Sputnik) stimulated the urgency" of the U.S. program, the late Ruben Mettler, who spearheaded development of the U.S. ballistic missile program in the mid-1950s, said in an archived NASA Oral History interview.

"Schedules were shortened. I can recall ...one trip that (Air Force Gen. Bernard) Schriever made to Washington at that time. He came back and he said, 'Your schedule is now one year earlier than it was,' and that went through the whole program," he said.

Until Sputnik, the U.S. missile program was focused on low-altitude, air-breathing vehicles. Plans for a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile were not in the national program, according to Mettler.

Sputnik changed everything. The United States immediately began working in earnest to put a man on the moon and created a civilian space agency, NASA, to handle the job. NASA met its goal in 1969 and went on to land five more crews on the lunar surface before the Apollo program was canceled in the early 1970s.

On the 50th anniversary of Sputnik's launch, NASA ironically finds itself with the same goal.

Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series on the history of Sputnik and its legacy. Part II: Next week — the new space race.

Related Links:

Listen to an audio history of Sputnik.

Sputnik: A NASA history

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Sputnik page

SpaceDaily.com