Science: The Sputnik

Launching of the Russian satellite is man’s first successful attempt to navigate the ocean of space around the earth. Despite the chagrin of U.S. rocketmen, few disparaged the Russian achievement. In at least three important ways—weight, orbit and altitude—the sputnik* outclasses the U.S. satellite, which is still on the ground.

Biggest surprise was the sputnik’s weight: 184.3 lbs. The U.S. Project Vanguard has hoped to send 21½ lbs. into space, less than one-eighth of the sputnik. Some critics cited the weight of the Russian satellite as proof that it is crude; but in satellite launching, the weight placed on the orbit is a measure of success.

Red Triumph. In choosing an orbit for the sputnik, the Russians were daring. The easiest way to put a satellite on an orbit is to launch it toward the east from the equator. This takes maximum advantage of the earth’s easterly rotation, and gives the satellite about 1,000 m.p.h. of free speed. The U.S. satellite, launched due east from Florida, would have got about 914 m.p.h. of free speed. The sputnik’s orbit, 65° away from the equator, takes it —in Red triumph—over nearly all of the inhabited earth. (The U.S. satellite would have stayed south of most of Europe and nearly all of the Soviet Union.)

The sputnik’s orbit is also much higher than Project Vanguard hoped to achieve. The U.S. satellite was expected to revolve at a minimum of 300 miles above the earth. This altitude would have touched the fringe of the atmosphere, probably limiting the satellite’s life to a few days. The sputnik revolves some 559 miles up, an altitude at which it could keep circling around for years.

When the sputnik crossed the sky, it took U.S. satellite watchers by surprise. The Smithsonian Institution’s Astrophysical Observatory at Cambridge, Mass., designed to correlate visual observations, was still unfinished. In spite of frantic efforts to make sense of reports flowing in from all over the country, its experts could not determine the sputnik’s orbit until figures came from the Moscow radio.

The launching was timed in such a way that the satellite passes over the U.S. either in broad daylight or at night. In daytime the 23-in. sphere, more than 500 miles away, is invisible against the glare of the sun. At night it is invisible because it is in the shadow of the earth. Only at dawn or dusk, when the satellite is in sunlight against a background of fairly dark sky, can it be seen.

Twilight Sight. The Russians made their sputnik more conveniently visible in their own territory than in the U.S. during its first trips around the earth, but U.S. observers will get their chance eventually. Dr. Joseph A. Hynek, director of the observatory’s satellite-tracking program, calculates that the satellite’s orbit shifts around the earth at 4° per day. This will bring it over the U.S. at twilight on about Oct. 20, when it should be visible through small telescopes or binoculars.

During the first night, the sputnik’s familiar beep-beep must have been heard by radio or TV, by a great part of the world’s population tone music-minded Swedish radio listener firmly asserted that the beep is in A-flat). U.S. experts could not tell at first whether the signal, which alternates between 20 and 40 megacycles, is a mere series of beeps, or whether it carries coded information from instruments in the satellite.

So far, the Russians have not told much except the sputnik’s weight and speed (about 18,000 m.p.h.). It circles the earth, they say, every 96.2 minutes. The plane of the orbit stands fixed in space while the earth rotates inside it, so successive trips carry the sputnik over different territory. General Anatoly Arkadievich Blagonravov, head of a three-man Russian delegation to last week’s satellite convention in Washington, says that it has four radio antennae and that the power of the radio signal is one watt (enough for a U.S. radio ham to talk with Australia). He estimates that the satellite’s batteries will keep its transmitter beeping for about three weeks. There was nothing on board this first sputnik, said Blagonravov except the batteries and transmitter.

Blagonravov, who was accompanied to Washington by Sergei M. Poloskov and A. M. Kasatskin, is a lieutenant general of artillery in the Red army and a member of the Soviet Academy of Science. He is best known in Russia as an authority on weapons, but he has written a great deal about space travel, and some but not all authorities on Russia believe that he is head of Soviet space rocket research. At 63, he is not likely to be the originator of new and daring technology.

New Generation. American scientists have verified most of the meager information coming from the Russians, but many believe that the whole story has not been told. One bit of news from Russia backs this suspicion. Soviet Scientist Yury Dmitrievich Boulanger said on the Moscow radio that the sputnik was radioing information about its encounters with micro-meteors. If so, it is probably making other observations too.

The reason for the U.S. defeat in the race toward space is fairly obvious: instead of having the use of big military rockets, U.S. Project Vanguard was forced to depend on the Navy’s Viking research rocket, whose thrust is only 27,000 lbs. Even if working perfectly, a Viking is barely strong enough to place a 21½-lb. satellite on its orbit. There is no margin for less-than-perfect performance. The Russians, according to General Blagonravov, used their most powerful rocket to launch the sputnik. Their launching vehicle must have taken off with at least 200,000 lbs. of thrust.

The flight of the sputnik meant that Russian science had matured and that, very likely a new generation of Russian scientists had come of age. German specialists have been employed in Russia, as in the U.S., but most of them have by now been sent home or are being used as teachers. Russian missile technology has risen far above the wartime German level. The Russians are now on their own.

* Satellite; literally, “fellow traveler.”