 Oftentimes, when we talk about Sputnik, and I'm speaking from an American perspective here just for the moment, we talk about the psychological impact it had on the United States, namely it spread fear throughout the country, but among scientists it was exciting because it opened the space age. But where did Sputnik come from? It didn't just poof into existence overnight by Soviet scientists. Like the early American satellite programs, Sputnik had roots, and those roots went back as just as far as any American program. The story of Sputnik, much like the stories of the early American satellites, has its roots in the end of the Second World War, both the Soviet Union and the United States imported German scientists, namely those rocket engineers who helped build and develop the V-2 missile. In the United States, new groups were founded for these German rocket scientists to start working with American scientists to turn those original V-2 documents and plans into missiles that the U.S. Army could eventually use in combat, while a similar thing happened in the Soviet Union. Before we dive in, just a couple of structural notes. In 1946, the Soviet Union established the Scientific Research Institute number 88, called simply NE-88. Within NE-88 was another scientific research institute called NE-4. Under the direction of Mikhail Tikhan Rebov, NE-4 was designed to investigate the development of methods of testing, acceptance, storage, and combat application of missile weaponry. In 1950, multiple branches of NE-88 were brought together to form a new design bureau called OKB-1. At the head was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. It was within NE-4 that scientists started to investigate putting a small satellite into orbit as early as 1954. They wondered what would happen if they put multiple rockets together, creating something more powerful and with more energy, that could launch a small scientific payload into orbit. Of course, this wasn't the first time a Russian had considered putting something into space. One of the grandfathers of modern rocketry is Konstantin Silkovsky. He did all the math in the late 1900s to show how, with enough rocket power, you could put something into space, potentially even to another planet. Herman O'Bareth had also written extensively about how to put small payloads into orbit and even get them to other planets. The one that wasn't super well known at the time was Robert Goddard, the American, who was notoriously reclusive, though he was the first to prove that liquid propulsion could work. So the Soviet scientists working in 1954 knew that it was possible to send a payload into space on a rocket, but this was the first time they really considered how to do it with the technology that they had. Tkhanarev ultimately put together a proposal to launch a modest spacecraft into orbit, just a small scientific satellite. He passed it to Korolev in OKB-1, who edited it and signed off on it. This was then passed to the Soviet Academy of Sciences where it again gained approval. Now all that Korolev needed was political support. There wasn't enough for the scientists to want to do it. In the Soviet Union in the 1950s, it had to have political support to gain any kind of money to get anything off the ground. But political support was forthcoming largely because of the budding Cold War with the United States. Korolev first pitched the idea to Dmitry Ustinov, the Minister of the Defense Industry, and added to the proposal of the modest satellite was all the research known about the American satellite programs, as they have to spur the Soviet Union on to not being bested in space. Another significant boost to the Soviet satellite plan came in July of 1955. President Eisenhower announced that the United States would launch a small satellite as part of its I-G-Y activities. Not to be outdone, Soviet leaders announced just three days later that the Soviet Union would also be launching a satellite as part of the International Geophysical Year. In the months that followed, the Soviet satellite plan became more concrete. The idea was to launch a satellite on the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile, something Korolev designed, because this way he could get the Soviet government to okay the missile development and have the satellite sort of tacked on as a little bit of a bonus. Based on projections of the R-7's power, the satellite turned into a relatively large first attempt, called Object D, Objects A, B, and V for the letters in the Russian alphabet, being designated warhead configurations for the R-7. This satellite was designed to be somewhere around 1,250 pounds, with somewhere between 440 and 660 pounds worth of scientific instruments. This was a significantly large satellite for a first attempt, one that Korolev hoped would dwarf anything the Americans were working on. And because it was tied to the R-7's development as a missile, he also promised that it could be done before the end of 1957, at the latest early 1958. But as it's want to happen in the early days of any big technology, like rockets and spacecraft, things did start to fall behind. Towards the end of 1956, the R-7's development was falling badly behind schedule, and there were also significant problems in developing the satellite. And so in November of that year, there was another option suggested. Instead of launching a large satellite, why not start with something small? It wouldn't have nearly the scientific capability, and it wouldn't be the full might of the rocket that would launch it, but it would at least potentially still be the first thing in space. The new plan was for a satellite internally called PS-1. It was a 22.8 inch, highly polished steel sphere that would carry a radio transmitter. Antennas sticking out of the sphere and swept back as though blowing in the wind as it traveled would help it be picked up from the ground. It wasn't the satellite of Korolev's dreams, but it could promise him that he would get the first ever object into space. And so, development on this much smaller satellite continued, with the launch date set for October of 1957. Incredibly, announcements from scientists and even reports in newspapers and on the radio didn't gain much attention. Nobody, neither in the Soviet Union nor in the United States, really knew how much work was going on at OKB-1, but the program was taking steady strides forward. On October 1, Radio Moscow announced the frequencies at which amateur radio operators could listen to the satellite beeping. On October 2, the launch date was moved up by three days in response to reports that American satellite programs might be closer to launching than previously thought. On October 3, an R-7 rocket with the SP-1 satellite was rolled onto the launch pad. On October 4, 1957, at 10.28 in the evening Moscow time, which is actually 1.28 in the morning October 5 at the launch site at Baikonur, Sputnik went into orbit and the space age began. Alright, that was the absolute cold-nose version of the story, as you guys can probably imagine that there is so much more to say on the backstory to Sputnik if you are curious, and I think some of you probably might be. I strongly encourage you to check out my companion blog post over at Vintage Space on Discover. I also want to remind you guys, or tell those of you who are visiting the channel for the first time, welcome, that you guys have a way to help make Vintage Space possible. I am now able to take sponsors on my channel. I have a video explaining how that works right in the card up here. There's a button down below that says sponsor on it. You can click that and learn a little bit more. If you love old-timey space and you want to see more videos just like this, consider helping make Vintage Space possible. Alright guys, as always, leave me your questions, comments, and anything you would like to see in future episodes in the comment section below. And of course, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily Vintage Space content. Be sure to give this video a like and with new videos going up every single week, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.