Haunting Music of the Spheres

By Hugh Sidey

There is a small but durable group of people in Washington who remember the night of Oct. 4, 1957. The city changed--and the world too. At the Soviet embassy on 16th Street that evening, about 50 scientists from 13 nations, members of the International Geophysical Year rocket and satellite conference, were gathered at a cocktail party when the New York Times's Walter Sullivan was tugged away to the phone. He returned with a startled look on his face and whispered to Physicist Lloyd Berkner, who then rapped for silence on the hors d'oeuvre table. "I wish to make an announcement," he told the group. "I am informed that a satellite is in orbit at an elevation of 900 km. I wish to congratulate our Soviet colleagues on their achievement."

Sputnik I, a tiny dot of light moving across the autumn sky, did what nothing else had done for nearly 20 years: it scared Washington. The people who knew the implications, like Astronomer John Hagen, head of Project Vanguard, America's own unborn space probe, stayed up all night linking a hasty network of aerials to catch the faint beeps of the intruder that mocked the presumed U.S. technological superiority. Power and politics were never again the same in the capital. Sputnik signaled a new superpower on the prowl. Space, for the moment, was the area of contention, but the meaning went far beyond. It still does.

Looking back now as we prepare another step into space, the wonder is that there were ever doubts about this adventure. Our recovery and triumph in space run like a golden thread through the dark political years, often the only moments of success, a unifying voice of pride in a discordant era. God, but we were, and are, good at it.

There were doubts at first. The cost was in the billions in the days, to paraphrase Senator Everett Dirksen, when a billion here and a billion there added up to real money. There was no guarantee the Soviets would not beat us to the moon with their bigger boosters.

The scientists can explain the stunning benefits to society from the space race in terms of technology. The larger meaning is much more profound. If John Kennedy, who made the decisions to push beyond earth, were around today, he would probably talk about poetry and history--a shining challenge, a new frontier.

Nothing seemed to kindle Kennedy's enthusiasm like another journey into space. He was jubilant when the U.S. finally got Alan Shepard into the stratosphere and down again. Kennedy flew to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to greet John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth. The week he was killed, J.F.K. stood beneath the first stage of the giant Saturn 1 rocket. While Wernher von Braun talked quietly into his ear of the day the monster would head toward the moon, Kennedy thrust his hands in his coat pockets, rocked back on his heels, and for a fleeting second or two in his imagination joined those voyagers far beyond earth. His eyes shone at the thought of what his country would do.

A year and a half ago, on the tenth anniversary of the first manned moon landing, Daniel Boorstin, head of the Library of Congress, gathered for lunch a group of the men and women who had organized the space program, designed and built the new equipment, and launched the vehicles. They were like officers who had served together on an old and glorious battlefield, sharing a special human bond that nobody else could savor. But the sublime theme in the excited talk around the table that day was that their campaign had been beautiful and peaceful. They told of making inventions upon demand or of slicing Government red tape with a slap on the back and a command, "Do it."

James Webb, who took over NASA, recalled leaving a meeting with Kennedy charged with the task of beating the Soviets to the moon. He knew then little of the technology or the obstacles. He carried only one clear thought with him that day. The task would be done. That was enough. With this new year, we can only hope that the flight of the space shuttle will be able to rekindle the imagination of the nation in the same special way.

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