Thursday, October 04, 2007
Is the Future in the Past? Sputnik, Star Trek and Space
by William S. Kowinski
It was the day that confirmed the dream of space travel which Star Trek would later dramatize and in many ways represent. But it was also the day that accelerated the dangers and the fears that, by the late 1960s, Star Trek would respond to, with an unusual message of hope for an apparently hopeless future.
Yet in the real world, a lack of knowledge about this history, and a general lack of awareness concerning real dangers in space, threaten to make the Star Trek dream unrealizeable for future generations.
That day was fifty years ago--October 4, 1957. My childhood recollections as well as newly revealed history, and information on the current state of space, may shed light on both the origin of Star Trek and its future.
[continued]
by William S. Kowinski
It was the day that confirmed the dream of space travel which Star Trek would later dramatize and in many ways represent. But it was also the day that accelerated the dangers and the fears that, by the late 1960s, Star Trek would respond to, with an unusual message of hope for an apparently hopeless future.
Yet in the real world, a lack of knowledge about this history, and a general lack of awareness concerning real dangers in space, threaten to make the Star Trek dream unrealizeable for future generations.
That day was fifty years ago--October 4, 1957. My childhood recollections as well as newly revealed history, and information on the current state of space, may shed light on both the origin of Star Trek and its future.
[continued]
By 8 pm it was dark outside, on that autumn night in western Pennsylvania. At the end of a long, multi-jointed arm, a green-shaded lamp focused light on the surface of the heavy, dark-grained wood desk, a hand-me-down undoubtedly older than I was. The rest of my room was in shadow.
I often had my radio on while I did my homework—a supposed shortwave set with a slate gray face and exposed, glowing tubes in the back, that sat on the bookshelf above and to the right of my desk, next to the globe. My father had put the radio together from a kit, and despite its impressive dials it seldom pulled in more than the local AM station. But for some reason the radio was off. I was absorbed in my homework, and I didn’t even notice the hum and murmur of the television set on the other side of the far wall, in the living room, where my parents were watching.
So when my bedroom door flew open I was startled. My father leaned in, and asked me if I’d been listening to the radio. I said “no” defensively, but he wasn’t checking on my homework diligence. He said the Russians had launched a satellite into space. It was orbiting the earth right now. They’d just announced it on television, and broadcast the actual sounds coming from the satellite. It was called Sputnik.
At my desk I turned on my radio, which eventually played the eerie, even- toned beeping sounds from space. I was stunned.
I often had my radio on while I did my homework—a supposed shortwave set with a slate gray face and exposed, glowing tubes in the back, that sat on the bookshelf above and to the right of my desk, next to the globe. My father had put the radio together from a kit, and despite its impressive dials it seldom pulled in more than the local AM station. But for some reason the radio was off. I was absorbed in my homework, and I didn’t even notice the hum and murmur of the television set on the other side of the far wall, in the living room, where my parents were watching.
So when my bedroom door flew open I was startled. My father leaned in, and asked me if I’d been listening to the radio. I said “no” defensively, but he wasn’t checking on my homework diligence. He said the Russians had launched a satellite into space. It was orbiting the earth right now. They’d just announced it on television, and broadcast the actual sounds coming from the satellite. It was called Sputnik.
At my desk I turned on my radio, which eventually played the eerie, even- toned beeping sounds from space. I was stunned.
The news of Sputnik had spread quickly in government and scientific circles earlier that day. Around 6:30 PM on the East Coast, President Dwight Eisenhower was at Camp David when he was told.
It was just a few minutes after 8 PM in New York when RCA technicians recorded the sound. Sputnik had already orbited over the U.S. three times by then.NBC News broke into radio and TV programming coast to coast. “Listen now for the sound,” the radio announcer said, “which forevermore separates the old from the new.” (The announcement did not, as some stories say, break into broadcast of the World Series. October 4, 1957 was a travel day for the Yankees and Milwaukee Braves--no game was played. Besides, night games in the World Series didn't begin until 1971.)
It was rush hour on the West Coast. That's where a 36 year old television writer named Gene Roddenberry would have heard about it. Commuters might have been listening to Jimmie Rodgers sing “Honeycomb,” the current number one hit, or the song it dethroned, “That’ll Be the Day” by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. When they first heard the Sound.
It was just a few minutes after 8 PM in New York when RCA technicians recorded the sound. Sputnik had already orbited over the U.S. three times by then.NBC News broke into radio and TV programming coast to coast. “Listen now for the sound,” the radio announcer said, “which forevermore separates the old from the new.” (The announcement did not, as some stories say, break into broadcast of the World Series. October 4, 1957 was a travel day for the Yankees and Milwaukee Braves--no game was played. Besides, night games in the World Series didn't begin until 1971.)
It was rush hour on the West Coast. That's where a 36 year old television writer named Gene Roddenberry would have heard about it. Commuters might have been listening to Jimmie Rodgers sing “Honeycomb,” the current number one hit, or the song it dethroned, “That’ll Be the Day” by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. When they first heard the Sound.
A lot of attention this 50th anniversary of Sputnik has focused on its role in beginning the Space Age. It did that, at least for adults. The technical achievement of humans sending a rocket into space to deliver an artificial satellite into orbit around the earth marked a monumental moment. For some, this very fact was profoundly shocking. “It is hard for people now to realize how stubbornly the idea of any form of space travel was opposed before that date, “wrote science fiction writer and historian Brian Aldiss, “and not only by the supposedly ignorant.”
But kids like me had been living in the Space Age for years. I’d grown up with Captain Video, and then Space Patrol, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, one after the other on Saturday mornings. There were science fiction movies nearly every week at the local theatre. And right there on my desk, in my notebook with the brown cover, was a science fiction story I was writing, called "The Desert Menace."
Certainly for me as well as for imaginative adults in America, the reality of Sputnik was a cause for wonder and excitement. But it was something I was looking forward to, even expecting. I learned about rockets and space travel from Disneyland's "Tomorrowland" hour. And I knew from Scholastic Magazine in school that the U.S. was planning to rocket a satellite into orbit as part of the International Geophysical Year—sometime between the summer of 1957 and the end of 1958.
But I wasn't prepared for the Russians doing it first. I’d even heard one of the smartest men in America, the quiz show champion Charles van Doren, talk about it on a television documentary about the IGY. The newsman interviewing him asked if the Russians might orbit a satellite first. He just chuckled. Years later, of course, van Doren admitted that on “The 64 Thousand Dollar Question,” he’d been given the answers.
But kids like me had been living in the Space Age for years. I’d grown up with Captain Video, and then Space Patrol, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, one after the other on Saturday mornings. There were science fiction movies nearly every week at the local theatre. And right there on my desk, in my notebook with the brown cover, was a science fiction story I was writing, called "The Desert Menace."
Certainly for me as well as for imaginative adults in America, the reality of Sputnik was a cause for wonder and excitement. But it was something I was looking forward to, even expecting. I learned about rockets and space travel from Disneyland's "Tomorrowland" hour. And I knew from Scholastic Magazine in school that the U.S. was planning to rocket a satellite into orbit as part of the International Geophysical Year—sometime between the summer of 1957 and the end of 1958.
But I wasn't prepared for the Russians doing it first. I’d even heard one of the smartest men in America, the quiz show champion Charles van Doren, talk about it on a television documentary about the IGY. The newsman interviewing him asked if the Russians might orbit a satellite first. He just chuckled. Years later, of course, van Doren admitted that on “The 64 Thousand Dollar Question,” he’d been given the answers.
We’re now told that people in the know in Washington were expecting it, and that Eisenhower’s military people welcomed it, specifically because they wanted to spy on the Russians from space, and now the Russians could hardly object when the U.S. sent a satellite over their country. No doubt some also saw it as an opportunity to intensify Cold War fears. We've also learned (according to a recent AP report, )that the military potential for their rockets was far more important to Soviet leaders than starting the Space Age.
Those fears were already in the air, and had been for most of the decade. So as I sat there in the pool of light surrounded by darkness, listening to the grim monotone from above, I opened my brown notebook and wrote about what had just happened. I still have that notebook:
"The Russians, Conquerors of Space. Oct.4, 1957. I have just heard some news which will affect my whole future. Russia has just successfully launched the first man-made satellite into space…How did the Russians do it? Out of their own ingenuity? Did they get information from a spy in America? A traitor? All the work our scientists and top brains did, what for? Will the Russians take advantage of this and use it to start a war?"
I was eleven years old. So was Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Steven Speilberg would turn 11 in a couple of months. George Lucas was 13.
Sputnik changed our lives, in some ways encouraging our dreams of the future, but also introduced a new dose of fear. (Clearly, Cold War paranoia was already in the air.) It gave us more (and more obviously useless) ‘duck and cover’ drills, and it started a national furor over our education, parodied for our generation by the Firesign Theatre pitting Communist Martyrs High School against More Science High. It also led to the National Defense Education Act, which provided loans for college, which is how many of us got there.
But there was also real basis for alarm. Although the U.S. had exploded the first true hydrogen bomb in 1952, it was too large and fragile for a weapon. The bomb the Soviets designed and exploded the next year was not as powerful, but it was already a weapon. The U.S. soon had created usable hydrogen bombs, but the Soviets had a brief advantage which had shaken the military establishment.
Now it seemed the Soviets had leapt ahead and were a much greater threat. Until then, an attack on the U.S. or Russia could be conducted only by using bombers. Although the U.S. was rapidly developing guided missiles, Sputnik (and especially the bigger Sputnik II launched a month later) proved the Soviets had built missiles capable of reaching the U.S. and delivering atomic bombs. Sputnik itself was beeping over America to remind them.Missiles were much more of a threat--they were faster than bombers and harder to detect.
Airplanes could be shot down, but not guided missiles. They didn't have to be particularly accurate, because hydrogen bombs were so powerful they didn’t have to be delivered to precise targets. To destroy New York or Moscow might require as many as 24 atomic bombs. The first hydrogen bombs were each as powerful as a thousand Hiroshima bombs. New York could be destroyed by one of them, which would also produce radiation lethal to the population of Washington, D.C., and would contaminate most of the Northeast, into Canada. The "lethal zone" in H-bomb tests in the Pacific after the Bravo test proved so powerful was equal to 20% of the continental United States.
Those fears were already in the air, and had been for most of the decade. So as I sat there in the pool of light surrounded by darkness, listening to the grim monotone from above, I opened my brown notebook and wrote about what had just happened. I still have that notebook:
"The Russians, Conquerors of Space. Oct.4, 1957. I have just heard some news which will affect my whole future. Russia has just successfully launched the first man-made satellite into space…How did the Russians do it? Out of their own ingenuity? Did they get information from a spy in America? A traitor? All the work our scientists and top brains did, what for? Will the Russians take advantage of this and use it to start a war?"
I was eleven years old. So was Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Steven Speilberg would turn 11 in a couple of months. George Lucas was 13.
Sputnik changed our lives, in some ways encouraging our dreams of the future, but also introduced a new dose of fear. (Clearly, Cold War paranoia was already in the air.) It gave us more (and more obviously useless) ‘duck and cover’ drills, and it started a national furor over our education, parodied for our generation by the Firesign Theatre pitting Communist Martyrs High School against More Science High. It also led to the National Defense Education Act, which provided loans for college, which is how many of us got there.
But there was also real basis for alarm. Although the U.S. had exploded the first true hydrogen bomb in 1952, it was too large and fragile for a weapon. The bomb the Soviets designed and exploded the next year was not as powerful, but it was already a weapon. The U.S. soon had created usable hydrogen bombs, but the Soviets had a brief advantage which had shaken the military establishment.
Now it seemed the Soviets had leapt ahead and were a much greater threat. Until then, an attack on the U.S. or Russia could be conducted only by using bombers. Although the U.S. was rapidly developing guided missiles, Sputnik (and especially the bigger Sputnik II launched a month later) proved the Soviets had built missiles capable of reaching the U.S. and delivering atomic bombs. Sputnik itself was beeping over America to remind them.Missiles were much more of a threat--they were faster than bombers and harder to detect.
Airplanes could be shot down, but not guided missiles. They didn't have to be particularly accurate, because hydrogen bombs were so powerful they didn’t have to be delivered to precise targets. To destroy New York or Moscow might require as many as 24 atomic bombs. The first hydrogen bombs were each as powerful as a thousand Hiroshima bombs. New York could be destroyed by one of them, which would also produce radiation lethal to the population of Washington, D.C., and would contaminate most of the Northeast, into Canada. The "lethal zone" in H-bomb tests in the Pacific after the Bravo test proved so powerful was equal to 20% of the continental United States.
So there were two sides to the Sputnik achievement: beginning the Space Age with all its dreams, and intensifying the dangers and fears of the Cold War, when the people of the Earth lived with the daily possibility that at any moment their world might blow up in the Last Nightmare.
This two legacies of Sputnik intensified throughout the 1960s. While the Russians continued to pioneer in space travel--sending up the first being (a dog), the first man and the first woman in orbit, the U.S. caught up and went ahead, from Alan Shepard's suborbital flight, to John Glenn's 3 orbits, to the Apollo missions and Neil Armstrong becoming the first human to step onto soil not of this earth.
At the same time, the U.S. and the Soviet Union built arsenals of hydrogen bombs atop by ever more powerful and accurate guided missiles. The world went to the brink of annihilating war several times, most famously in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Then Vietnam, racial confrontations in the U.S. and elsewhere, violence and turmoil in many parts of the world, and a growing awareness of deadly pollutions and other environmental destruction, all made it seem increasingly unlikely that there would be any future at all.
Then Gene Roddenberry--born exactly the same year as my father--and others of his generation, brought the dream of space travel and exploration to life, while countering the despair that no future was possible--and yet, not ducking the hard problems that would have to be solved in order to get to that future. (Well, not completely.) GR, Gene Coon and others who shaped Star Trek knew the realities of war from their service in World War II, and even many of the younger participants, like many of the actors, remembered wartime as children.
Out of that experience they imagined a united Earth, a Federation of Planets and a Starfleet with exploration as its chief mission--but with a Prime Directive to prevent it from becoming what other fleets of exploration often had been, the stalking horse of conquest. Diplomacy was its second mission, but with the capability and final mission of armed defense. That's how Star Trek resolved the two aspects of Sputnik. And while Star Trek was just on the air, something happened in the real world that took us one step closer to the Star Trek future.
This two legacies of Sputnik intensified throughout the 1960s. While the Russians continued to pioneer in space travel--sending up the first being (a dog), the first man and the first woman in orbit, the U.S. caught up and went ahead, from Alan Shepard's suborbital flight, to John Glenn's 3 orbits, to the Apollo missions and Neil Armstrong becoming the first human to step onto soil not of this earth.
At the same time, the U.S. and the Soviet Union built arsenals of hydrogen bombs atop by ever more powerful and accurate guided missiles. The world went to the brink of annihilating war several times, most famously in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Then Vietnam, racial confrontations in the U.S. and elsewhere, violence and turmoil in many parts of the world, and a growing awareness of deadly pollutions and other environmental destruction, all made it seem increasingly unlikely that there would be any future at all.
Then Gene Roddenberry--born exactly the same year as my father--and others of his generation, brought the dream of space travel and exploration to life, while countering the despair that no future was possible--and yet, not ducking the hard problems that would have to be solved in order to get to that future. (Well, not completely.) GR, Gene Coon and others who shaped Star Trek knew the realities of war from their service in World War II, and even many of the younger participants, like many of the actors, remembered wartime as children.
Out of that experience they imagined a united Earth, a Federation of Planets and a Starfleet with exploration as its chief mission--but with a Prime Directive to prevent it from becoming what other fleets of exploration often had been, the stalking horse of conquest. Diplomacy was its second mission, but with the capability and final mission of armed defense. That's how Star Trek resolved the two aspects of Sputnik. And while Star Trek was just on the air, something happened in the real world that took us one step closer to the Star Trek future.
One positive step had been taken immediately after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when President John F. Kennedy proposed and fought for the Limited Test Ban Treaty, in which the U.S., the Soviet Union and many other nations agreed to stop testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere and under the sea, and to never test them in outer space. It was the first agreement that slowed down the arms race, and others would come over the years to slowly lessen the danger of global nuclear suicide.
Another positive step was taken forty years ago this October 10, when the Outer Space Treaty was signed in 1967 and since ratified by some 100 countries. It states:“The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.” It sounds like it could have come from a Star Trek script.
That treaty is partially responsible for the major role that space plays in our lives today. No, we don't have the manned missions of exploration we expected after Neil Armstrong's giant step. But we have the descendants of Sputnik--the communications and global positioning satellites in orbit that make so much we take for granted possible: like the Internet, cell phones, GPS. These days, the world's business--including its entertainment, information, health care and just about everything else--would stop cold without them.
But some people worry that this could very well happen. That's why some are marking the anniversary of Sputnik in their particular ways.
Another positive step was taken forty years ago this October 10, when the Outer Space Treaty was signed in 1967 and since ratified by some 100 countries. It states:“The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.” It sounds like it could have come from a Star Trek script.
That treaty is partially responsible for the major role that space plays in our lives today. No, we don't have the manned missions of exploration we expected after Neil Armstrong's giant step. But we have the descendants of Sputnik--the communications and global positioning satellites in orbit that make so much we take for granted possible: like the Internet, cell phones, GPS. These days, the world's business--including its entertainment, information, health care and just about everything else--would stop cold without them.
But some people worry that this could very well happen. That's why some are marking the anniversary of Sputnik in their particular ways.
The biggest threat, in terms of size, is the growing possibility of warfare conducted in space. The Chinese have tested a satellite-killer missile. But for many years, eyes have been on the U.S. as the chief danger.
Beginning with his dream of space-based weapons that to the eternal chagrin of George Lucas came to be called Star Wars, Ronald Reagan began what George W. Bush wants to intensify and expand. The Russians have picked this moment of Sputnik's 50th anniversary and the Space Treaty's 40th to warn that if any country puts weapons in space it will lead to a new arms race. And several peace organizations have chosen this week for an international week of protest to stop the militarization of space.
This is not a science fiction problem. Space-based weapons are not only a new threat to the sense of safety and security of many nations, their use--even their testing--can cause important damage. Right now, our use of space for all that satellites enable us to do is threatened by that most mundane of byproducts: garbage and debris.
It's no small problem. According to David Wright in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, "Some 4,500 launches have taken place since Sputnik, and there are currently 850 active satellites in space, owned by some 50 countries, as well as nearly 700,000 pieces of debris large enough to damage or destroy those satellites."
Space-based weapons could make this situation infinitely worse. Too much small debris zooming around the earth could not only disrupt, limit or even end Internet, cell phone and related communication, it could make space travel virtually impossible. If we don't destroy ourselves here (which we still can do--there are still enough hydrogen bombs atop ready missiles to do the job, and that's the quick way; for a slower way, there's the Climate Crisis), then we could imprison ourselves on this planet because spacecraft couldn't make it through the debris barrier. At least until Trek "shields" are developed, there may be nothing like Star Trek in our future.
In the meantime, our best bet is to keep space peaceful and build on the Space Treaty. Unfortunately, it is one of many international treaties that the current U.S. Bush administration ignores and wants to destroy. But as Laura Grego writes in the New Scientist: “While we look back at the achievements of half a century in space, we should look ahead, too, and make it a priority to safeguard our common heritage in space and our security on Earth.”
Beginning with his dream of space-based weapons that to the eternal chagrin of George Lucas came to be called Star Wars, Ronald Reagan began what George W. Bush wants to intensify and expand. The Russians have picked this moment of Sputnik's 50th anniversary and the Space Treaty's 40th to warn that if any country puts weapons in space it will lead to a new arms race. And several peace organizations have chosen this week for an international week of protest to stop the militarization of space.
This is not a science fiction problem. Space-based weapons are not only a new threat to the sense of safety and security of many nations, their use--even their testing--can cause important damage. Right now, our use of space for all that satellites enable us to do is threatened by that most mundane of byproducts: garbage and debris.
It's no small problem. According to David Wright in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, "Some 4,500 launches have taken place since Sputnik, and there are currently 850 active satellites in space, owned by some 50 countries, as well as nearly 700,000 pieces of debris large enough to damage or destroy those satellites."
Space-based weapons could make this situation infinitely worse. Too much small debris zooming around the earth could not only disrupt, limit or even end Internet, cell phone and related communication, it could make space travel virtually impossible. If we don't destroy ourselves here (which we still can do--there are still enough hydrogen bombs atop ready missiles to do the job, and that's the quick way; for a slower way, there's the Climate Crisis), then we could imprison ourselves on this planet because spacecraft couldn't make it through the debris barrier. At least until Trek "shields" are developed, there may be nothing like Star Trek in our future.
In the meantime, our best bet is to keep space peaceful and build on the Space Treaty. Unfortunately, it is one of many international treaties that the current U.S. Bush administration ignores and wants to destroy. But as Laura Grego writes in the New Scientist: “While we look back at the achievements of half a century in space, we should look ahead, too, and make it a priority to safeguard our common heritage in space and our security on Earth.”
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