My Brush with Sputnik and the Space Race to the Moon

On Oct. 4, 1957 I was assigned to be Officer of the Day at McChord AFB in Tacoma, Washington which meant that I had to be on duty during the off duty hours to handle any emergency that should come up and decide whether it was necessary to alert the base commander.  It was the only time during my Air Force years that I was given that assignment and i expected it to be uneventful.  I received only one phone call.  It was from the flight line and the message was that a plane was arriving from Alaska with photographs taken of the first man-made satellite to be put into orbit around the earth and the photographs were to be picked up by to a certain major who then would have to find a way get the photos to the Pentagon the next day. But they couldn’t find the major and If he didn’t appear, I would have to pick up the photos.  It was in the middle of the cold war and up to that point the U.S. was confident that it would always have the military advantage over Russia but Sputnik changed everything. The launching of Sputnik proved that the Soviet Union’s space technology was far ahead.  

Before Oct 4th I had never heard of Sputnik but I realized that I was in middle of something big if the photos had to reach the Pentagon the next day.  They eventually found the major but in the meantime I had enough time to think about how l was going to get those photos to the Pentagon and ultimately in the hands of the president. It was in the middle of the night. I was an ordinary first lieutenant but somehow I had figure out a way to do something beyond my normal abilities.

Around this time Pres.Eisenhower went on TV to convince the American people that we were keeping up with Russians but theTV presentation did not convince anyone. Ultimately we accepted the fact that there was a space race and we were behind.  That led to self-incriminations about being soft, lacking well trained scientists and mathematicians when compared to the Russians.  In 1958 the National Defense Education Act provided low interest rate loans for college students who would major in math and science. I had a close-up view of this space-race frenzy because I was living in NYC and attending Teachers College, Col Univ. during most of the 1960s and paying my own way because they weren’t giving money to people who were studying humanitarian subjects, like psychology. The race didn’t end in the 1960s but a psychological victory occurred in 1969 when American astronauts landed on the moon ahead of the Russians.  I had a personal, emotional connection to Sputnik, the thing that started the race to the moon, but after that I was merely a spectator.

Duane Harmon