What is it in Space-Age Russian? by Michael S. Vartanoff

The illustrated postcard below celebrated the launch of both Sputnik I and Sputnik II, which on 3 November 1957 carried Soviet space dog into Laika into space. “It was a more tremendous victory for Soviet propaganda to be able to trumpet to the world the Russians were the first to break through the frontiers of space.” Sputnik would indeed go on to feature prominently in posters, stamps, sculptures and monuments to the ideological superiority of the communist system. “Launching of the satellite was a tremendous victory for science,” noted a United Press report breaking news of Sputnik 1 the next day. Physicist Edward Teller, the ‘father of the hydrogen bomb’, described the event as “a greater defeat for our country than Pearl Harbour”. Future US president Lyndon Johnson fumed that the Russians could one day be “dropping bombs on us from space like kids dropping rocks onto cars from freeway overpasses”. American commentators warned of the prospect of enemy attacks raining down from space. While the successful launch and placement of Sputnik 1 into low elliptical orbit was heralded as a scientific triumph, it also excited fears of a dangerous new era in the Cold War stand-off between the Soviet Union and the United States. It entered orbit 295 seconds after lift-off, with the satellite separating about 20 seconds later. The rocket launched at 10:29 pm Moscow time from a secret site now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The second-stage core rocket, carrying a little more than 86 tonnes of fuel, had a burn time of 300 seconds. The boosters, powered by a mix of of liquid oxygen and kerosene, provided the initial lift, burning through about 160 tons of fuel in 120 seconds.

The two-stage rocket had a core 28-metre-long fuselage with four strap-on boosters. It did this atop a rocket whose design was derived from the Soviet Union’s development of the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile – the R-7 ‘Semyorka’. Sputnik’s 1 greatest achievement was actually getting into space. It was highly polished so Sputnik would better reflect sunlight, enabling it to be more easily seen in the sky – particularly when it was over the United States. The aluminium alloy shell was strengthened with magnesium and titanium.

What is it in Space-Age Russian? by Michael S. Vartanoff