A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey

1957 - The Space Race Begins

Michael D'Antonio

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781416568346
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History

A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey tells the remarkable story of America's first efforts to succeed in space, a time of exploding rockets, national space mania, Florida boomtowns, and interservice rivalries so fierce that President Dwight Eisenhower had to referee them. When the Soviet Union launched the first orbital satellite, Sputnik I, Americans panicked. The Soviets had nuclear weapons, the Cold War was underway, and now the USSR had taken the lead in the space race. Members of Congress and the press called for an all-out effort to launch a satellite into orbit. With dire warnings about national security in the news almost every day, the armed services saw space as the new military frontier. But President Eisenhower insisted that the space effort, which relied on military technology, be supervised by civilians so that the space race would be peaceful. The Navy's Vanguard program flopped, and the Army, led by ex-Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and a martinet general named J. Bruce Medaris (whom Eisenhower disliked), took over. Meanwhile, the Soviets put a dog inside the next Sputnik, and Americans grew more worried as the first animal in space whirled around the Earth. Throughout 1958 America went space crazy. UFO sightings spiked. Boys from Brooklyn to Burbank shot model rockets into the air. Space-themed beauty pageants became a national phenomenon. The news media flocked to the launchpads on the swampy Florida coast, and reporters reinvented themselves as space correspondents. And finally the Army's rocket program succeeded. Determined not to be outdone by the Russians, America's space scientists launched the first primate into space, a small monkey they nicknamed Old Reliable for his calm demeanor. And then at Christmastime, Eisenhower authorized the launch of a secret satellite with a surprise aboard. A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey memorably recalls the infancy of the space race, a time when new technologies brought ominous danger but also gave us the ability to realize our dreams and reach for the stars.

INDEX

ABC

AC Spark Plug

Adams, Sherman

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)

SCORE project and

Aeroballistics and Guidance Control Center

Aerobee rocket

Aeromedical Research Laboratory

Air Defense Missile Command

Air Force,

Air Force, U.S.

black bears experiment of

Blue Book Project of

manned flight and

MISS proposal of

moon shot by

Security Service Operations Center of

UFO phenomenon and

Air Force Association

Albert I (monkey)

Albert II (monkey)

Albert III (monkey)

Albina (experimental dog)

Alsop, Joseph

Alsop, Stewart

“American Idealism in Action,”

American Rocket Research Society

Antarctica

Antigua

Apollo-Soyuz

Apt, Milburn

Argus, exercise

Argus, project

Explorer IV and

Arkansas City Technological Organization of Rocketry and Aero Ballistics

Armbrust, David

Armed Forces Radio

Armstrong, Neil

Army, U.S.

NASA’s bureaucratic conflict with

satellite program of

youth intern project of

Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA)

Army Corps of Engineers

Army Signal Corps

Army Transportation Corps

Ascension Island

Associated Press

Astronautics

astronauts

Atlas Agenda missile

Atlas rocket

Big Annie

New York Times on success of

10-B model of

Atomic Energy Commission

atomic weapons

disaster novels of

Australia

Aviation Week

B-47 bomber

B-52 bomber

Bahamas

Baltimore Sun,

Barbree, Jay

later care...