The Space Race & Nuclear Age

On the evening of October 4, 1957, a polished aluminum sphere the size of a beach ball began circling the Earth at 29,000 kilometers per hour. It weighed 83 kilograms. It carried no cameras, no scientific instruments of any real consequence. All it did was beep.

That beep terrified the most powerful nation on Earth.

The Space Race cannot be understood apart from the nuclear arms race that preceded it and ran alongside it. The same rockets that carried satellites carried warheads. The same physicists who dreamed of exploring the cosmos built weapons that could end civilization. These two projects, one pointing toward the stars and the other toward annihilation, were funded by the same governments, built by the same engineers, and driven by the same geopolitical fear.