Growing up in the 1950's/'60's, I recall the IGY (International Geophysical Year )
http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/igy.html which furthered international studies of the earth, and was a used by the American educational establishment as a big push to interest schoolchildren in the sciences.
For America, there were a lot of Launchpad disappointments. A large area of coastal Florida scrub land was dedicated to be a launch site, and the base for America's efforts to get into space. I recall the rockets failing on the launch pad, or shortly-after lift-off, with satellites. Eventually, they became better, but the threat of catastrophic failure was always there. It was too-dangerous to consider placing a human aboard one of those roman candles. We used animals instead, and
My Weekly Reader was filled with info on the space program, and the mammals sent-aloft.
Washoe for American kids was the
Laika equivalent, though one was a chimp and one was a dog.
When the Mercury Program was founded, I was, like many of my schoolmates, very interested in the American space program. I remember going outside to see
Sputnik, which was called, "the Communist moon," as it traversed its path across the sky over America.We finally got
Vanguard aloft, and there was a radio station that broadcast its simple signal. It was a direct descendant from the captured German WW II scientists' work (see
Operation Paperclip) on the V-2 at Peenemunde, and based on the technology developed by the Nazis upon the pioneering liquid fueled-rockets of America's Dr. Robert Goddard.
The men selected to be 'astronauts' (in contrast to the USSR 'cosmonaut') were immediate heroes, even before they rode in the Mercury capsules. I was allowed to stay home from school on the day Alan Shepard became the first Mercury astronaut in space, to listen to the launch, and to his recovery at sea. The Russians had orbited the earth, but we only saw the first two astronauts get into space, on sub-orbital paths. It wasn't until John Glenn was orbiting that many Americans felt "we had made it."
Tom Wolfe's book
The Right Stuff was a fascinating cover of the choosing of the Mercury astronauts, their training, and their space exploits. The movie of it was a very successful production.
John Glenn served his country many ways, in wartime, in peacetime, in space, and in Congress. What an American story of dedication to public service. He truly is an American hero.
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