The launch of Sputnik 50 years ago almost triggered a nuclear World War III. Global catastrophe was averted, however, because of a private agreement between two ex-generals. Now, with the help of ...

When the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, was put into orbit around Earth, anyone in the path of the satellite could ...

Sputnik’s launch impelled an unprecedented expansion in America's support for scientific research and education in the face of a technological threat that caught us by surprise. Fifty years later, we ...

After Sputnik: 50 Years of the Space Age (Smithsonian Books, Washington, 2007). Google Scholar Dickson, P. Sputnik: Shock of the Century (Walker, New York, 2001).