Nova: Sputnik Declassified

[Lydia Leftcoast]

This program demonstrates that the surface story--the U.S. being outdone by the Soviets--was not the whole story. After all these years, I'm no longer surprised.

However, I'm just old enough to remember the sensation caused by the Soviets' launching of Sputnik and the early days of satellite technology.

One day when I was about ten years old, we had the radio playing in the background during lunch. (My father was a Lutheran pastor and had his office in the house.) They interrupted the music to announce that the Soviets had launched a man into space.

My father set down his fork and told us, "This is an important day in human history. I want you kids to remember this."

And indeed I have.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I sure as hell remember it. I was in 8th grade.

The news blew us away, & the story stayed with us. The Sputnik launch resulted in all the schools suddenly getting a lot of new science equipment from the Feds that we would never have seen out there in the jackpines of northern Wisconsin. We got a pretty good science education in my high school years that we would not have otherwise gotten.