50th Anniversary of the Sputnik Launch

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik, the first satellite into outer space. A video clip was shown of a Universal newsreel from October 7, 1957, about Sputnik that included the sound of its radio transmissions. The authors of three books inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch discussed the Soviet and U.S. space race and the effect that Sputnik’s launch had on each country.

Paul Dickson is the author of Sputnik: The Shock of a Century, published by Walker and Company. Matthew Brzezinski, a former Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal who has reported extensively on homeland-security issues for The New York Times Magazine, is the author of Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age, published by Times Books. Gene Eisman is the co-author of Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race, published by National Geographic. close