![]() ![]() Eisenhower gets high marks for his quiet mastery of the situation, pleased that the Soviets were first into space, since that set off a race to improve American education, even as it fueled an outbreak of UFO hysteria. Dickson examines the feuding between the services for control of the space program and candidly exposes the reasons for the lag in American research. American and Soviet troops vied to seize German scientists and hardware. Dickson chronicles the history of rocket research, including Nazi successes during WWII. ![]() President Eisenhower remained calm and tried to lead the country through the media-generated crisis, but the Sputnik "debacle" helped the Democrats in the next election. The Soviet spacecraft panicked Americans, who constantly looked up into the sky, spoke in hushed tones and feared that the satellite presaged an atomic attack. The Soviet Union was propelled into international prominence on October 4, 1957, by becoming the first nation to successfully launch a satellite, beating the American program by several months. Dickson ( The Electronic Battlefield) chronicles in detail the Soviet satellite Sputnik. ![]()
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