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Quotes About Sputnik

Eisenhower, his science adviser James Killian, and others in the White House didn't want to be reminded that the rocket was the same damn Jupiter-C that could have placed a satellite in orbit more than a year before Sputnik. The Army was told to keep that information quiet—in fact, to change the name of the rocket, and Jupiter-C became Juno 1.
~ Alan Shepard
Even before Sputnik, scientists and policy makers worried that not enough Americans were studying science.
~ Virginia Postrel
I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep.
~ Haruki Murakami
Do you know what 'Sputnik' means in Russian? 'Travelling companion'. I looked it up in a dictionary not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange name. It's just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the Earth.
~ Haruki Murakami
Stuart Would ya look at the size of that kid's head It's the size of a planetoid and it has it's own weather system Looks like an orange on a toothpick I'm not kidding, that boy's head is like Sputnik spherical but quite pointy at parts He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight, on his huge pillow.
~ So I Married an Axe Murderer
Whether the Eisenhower administration has underestimated the American people's interest in space exploration or Truman never full appreciated MacArthur, the Soviet Union's Sputnik program has created a public spectacle that even Disney and von Braun might envy.
~ Ken Hollings
At the end of October 4 in 1957, when I was coming back from sea duty in the South Pacific, Sputnik went up. I realized that humans would be right behind robot aircraft or spacecraft even though I really had no plans of being in aviation or a professional aviator and certainly not in the military.
~ Edgar Mitchell
Instead of more talk about salmon and high-speed rails, more criticism of the Supreme Court or more praise for the Soviet's Sputnik mission - President Obama should use his State of the Union Address to tell the American people the truth about the fundamental financial challenges our country faces.
~ Tim Griffin
In order for the United States to do the right things for the long term, it appears to be helpful for us to have the prospect of humiliation. Sputnik helped us fund good science - really good science: the semiconductor came out of it.
~ Bill Gates
I think this is going to trigger 'Sputnik 2.0,' a biomedical duel on progress between China and the United States," said Carl June, a noted cancer researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who at the time was still struggling to get regulatory approval for a similar clinical trial.
~ Walter Isaacson
Nothing did more during these years to excite such emotions than the successful launching by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957 of Sputnik, the world's first orbiting satellite. Sputnik was small—about 184 pounds and the size of a beach ball.
~ James T. Patterson
fact, there was no such thing at that time—or later—as a missile gap, a phrase that Democrats and others flung at the GOP during the 1958 and 1960 election campaigns. The Sputnik launches indeed demonstrated that the Soviets had an edge in capacity for thrust—the ability to boost satellites into orbit. But in fact the Soviets lagged badly in the production of usable warheads and did not deploy an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) during the Eisenhower years.
~ James T. Patterson
DARPA had been established in 1958, in response to the Soviets beating the United States into space with Sputnik, the first satellite. Its mission was to ensure that the United States would from then on be "the initiator and not the victim of strategic technological surprises.
~ Daniel Yergin
I was only eight when Sputnik was launched, and at that age the boundary between science and fiction is pretty blurry. Whichever way the process ran, I've been a fan of science and SF ever since.
~ Edward M. Lerner
With the launch of Sputnik 7 in 1957 the Soviet Union had scored the first victory in what would be a three–decade space race. But in the crucial area of photographic reconnaissance satellites, it was the United States that jumped ahead, even if its success was not trumpeted. It was an advantage the United States never relinquished, always remaining ahead in crucial areas of reconnaissance satellite technology.
~ Unknown
In October, 1957, Russia electrified the world with her first Sputnik. Built on plans stolen from the United States after World War II, Sputnik I, with a payload weighing 184 pounds, was successfully launched into orbit October 4th.
~ Unknown
My name is Alexei Yuri Gagarin Siege of Stalingrad Glorious Five Year Plan Sputnik Tractor Moscow Dynamo Back Four Balowski. Me Dad was a bit of a Communist, know what I mean?
~ Alexei Sayle
My expertise is the space program and what it should be in the future based on my experience of looking at the transitions that we've made between pre-Sputnik days and getting to the moon.
~ Buzz Aldrin