US in shock after Sputnik
For two months the Americans have been chasing their tails in frustration about the Russian space successes with Sputniks. Even their own satellite, Vanguard, seems unable to rehabilitate their self-esteem. More alarming still is the way the American public has reacted to the news of the last few weeks. We shall surely all suffer if they are not dissuaded from the hysterical opinions which have been expressed in different American newspapers since Sputnik 1 flew in October.
It is clearly now the duty of wise American statesmen and of any other people who have influence across the Atlantic to stress again and again that Sputnik satellites do not signal the end of civilised existence. To be sure, the fact that the Russians have been able to launch two of these is proof that in some fields their engineers are superior at the moment to their American counterparts. But this simple fact does not in itself imply that the whole of American society is teetering on the edge of disaster.
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All it does mean is that the Russians must now be considered to be the technological equals of the west in some important respects. It is apparent that the things they have recently done are not the result of good espionage or the prudent stealing of 鈥淕erman experts鈥� after the second world war.
If the west can learn to live with this situation, there is a chance that the tension between the two sides could be reduced, if only because a disarmament agreement of some kind would be in everybody鈥檚 interests. If the Americans will not accept this situation and will waste more of their strength on ambitious technical projects for the sake of their propaganda value, we may soon find ourselves in an international mess of rare dimensions, even by the standards which have recently been set.
From The New Scientist, 12 December 1957