Sputnik's Launching

Throughout all of American history there have been many events that occurred that mark an important turning point, they vary what they influence. One major turning point in space exploration was the first launching of a satellite in 1957. The satellites name was Sputnik. All that could be heard from the artificial satellite was just a series of rhythmic “beeps” on October 4, 1957. Those short beeps came from the first satellite to be launched into space as it passed overhead. Sputnik was a small round artificial moon that became a major turning point in technology and history in years to come. It was the first satellite to be successfully launched, named Sputnik after the Russian word for "satellite," was launched at 10:29 p.m., it was launched by the Soviet Union from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic now known as the country Kazakhstan in 1957 (Geldern par 3). A satellite is an object that orbits another object that is greater in mass due to gravity pulling it in and around. An example is the moon is a satellite orbiting the earth, though in the case of Sputnik, it is a man made satellite. Now there are about eight thousand satellites in space, approximately five hundred and sixty of those objects in space are actually operational satellites, and the rest are dead satellites, or pieces of space debris (Cain par 3). The Cold War was a time of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States, and Sputnik had added to it because some worried that it was more than a harmless beeping satellite. Though it ended up doing more good than bad because it was the main reason that the United States into rushing to get ahead in the “Space Race”. The Space Race was a competition existing between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both were racing to become the superior power in outer space, in terms of exploration, it is generally considered as beginning in 1957 with Sputnik and ending in the 1970s (. This in return furthered developments in other