Question

Why was the launch of Sputnik in 1957 important?

Answer 1

Sputnik was a wake-up call for America. It was almost a complete surprise to the American people, proof that the Russians had surpassed us in space technology. Our rushed efforts to repeat the feat failed abysmally.

Both Russian and US technology relied on German scientists who worked on the V2 rocket in WWII. Comedian Bob Hope quipped that the Russian's German scientists were better than our German scientists.

Sputnik was an alleged indictment on our educational system, that we were too lax, that we were not producing enough scientists and engineers.

One eventual benefit of Sputnik was our efforts at miniaturization. Since we could not put the same heavy payloads into space that the Russians could, we devised micro-miniaturization.