Can America Ever Have Another ?Sputnik Moment??

Rep. Clare Booth Luce of Connecticut called the beep on Sputnik?s transponder ?an intercontinental outer-space raspberry to a decade of American pretensions that the American way of life was a gilt-edged guarantee of our national superiority.? It wasn?t just politicians who were in a panic. John Rinehart of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory predicted that, ?no matter what we do now, the Russians will beat us to the moon? and may get there ?within a week.? Edward Teller, father of the H-bomb, said on national TV that America had lost ?a battle more important and greater than Pearl Harbor.? Sen. Lyndon Johnson?s aide, George Reedy, wrote, in a memo to his boss, ?It is unpleasant to feel that there is something floating around in the air which the Russians can put up and we can?t. ? It really doesn?t matter whether the satellite has any military value. The important thing is that the Russians have left the earth, and the race for control of the universe has started.? (Reedy?s emphasis.) (All four quotes are from here.)

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