Had it not been for a collision with a tree by a vodka-sodden driver on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia might never have put Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, into orbit around the Earth. History does not record the driver's name.

It was 1957, and the Soviet Union's brilliant but secretive rocket genius, Sergey Korolyov – known to the West for decades only as 'the Chief Designer' – had been struggling against a lack of interest from the Soviet military and the Politburo in being the first to launch 'a little Moon', as he dubbed it.

His explicit focus, dictated by the leather-clad apparatchiks who visited the desert plains of his secret launch site in Kazakhstan, was to "build ICBMs": intercontinental ballistic missiles that could hurl atomic warheads at the USA.

Dawn of the Space Age

It was the dawn of the Space Age, and the world was in the grip of a Cold War and an arms race between two ideologies: capitalism and its champion, the USA; and the hulking command economy of communism in the USSR.

At the time, it was not clear who would win: led by the more liberal Nikita Khrushchev, who had taken over following Stalin's death four years earlier, industrial production in the USSR was expanding fast, threatening to overtake the USA, itself undergoing a postwar boom. And tensions were high: the USSR had detonated its first hydrogen bomb in an atmospheric test in 1953, formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, and sent tanks into Hungary the following year to forestall a democratic drift.

Meanwhile, the U.S. senator Joe McCarthy had begun a political witch-hunt for an imagined communist conspiracy in Washington in the early 1950s, and the CIA helped overthrow elected governments in Iran and Guatemala (1953 and 1954 respectively) for being too pro-Soviet.

At the time, both the U.S. and the USSR had bombers in the air on constant rotation, laden with nuclear weapons and poised to retaliate against any sign of nuclear strike. The U.S. Strategic Air Command operated a fleet of more than 3,000 planes and was averaging 430 aerial refuelings a day. In comparison, ICBMs on the ground ready to launch in case of an attack would be a lot less expensive – and less prone to triggering an accidental war.

Taking a chance

So when the United Nations designated July 1957 as the start of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) – and suggested a satellite be placed in Earth orbit to "allow scientists… to take part in a series of coordinated observations of various geophysical phenomena" – Korolyov saw his chance.

Both superpowers reacted to the call: U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower committed publicly to a launch in 1955, to take place during the IGY; hearing of this, the Soviet Union, too, made plans.

For Korolyov and his American counterpart, Wernher von Braun, developing rockets was more about exploring space than building missiles. But both were hampered by a military that was at best uninterested and at worst, openly hostile, to their cause. The task of launching the first American satellite was given to the U.S. Navy – even though von Braun's team had, by September 1956, set a record by launching a Jupiter-C rocket more than
1,000 km high and a distance of 5,300 km.

Von Braun could have placed a satellite into orbit there and then; but he had been ordered to fill the upper stage with sand ballast. There would be no "accidental satellites", he was warned: the U.S. Navy was developing a rocket and would launch a satellite some time in 1957. Korolyov, reading of von Braun's flight, surmised the U.S. had actually attempted to launch a satellite, but failed.

"Perfect Soviet spy"

Earlier that year, a design for a Russian satellite, known as 'Object D', was approved and a launch date set for 1957 or 1958. Weighing more than 1,000 kg, it would carry up to 300 kg of instruments, and would be built between the super-secret OKB-1 research institute outside Moscow and the USSR Academy of Sciences.

To Korolyov fell the trickiest part: launching it. But he was already developing the perfect vehicle: the R-7, which became the world's first ICBM. A two-stage rocket 34 metres long and weighing 280 tonnes, it was designed to (and eventually did) deliver a payload up to 8,800 km away, with an accuracy of around 5 km.

But to his frustration, the Red Army restricted all non-military work. It took a visit by Secretary Khrushchev himself to the rocket site in
1956 for Korolyov – while showing off the immense R-7 to gawking ministers – to press the leadership for a satellite.

Displaying a model, he described a satellite as "the perfect Soviet spy", flying around the world and taking photos of U.S. installations. Would the satellite interfere with the ICBM, Khrushchev asked. No, assured Korolyov. "If the main task does not suffer, then do it," the Soviet leader replied.

Simple radio beacon

Development of the R-7 proceeded fast, with three test launches between May and August 1957 establishing a new distance record. Finally, the rocket was ready. But work on 'Object D' – meant to be the first Soviet satellite – was repeatedly delayed. So Korolyov ordered Object D, ready or not, delivered to his launch site immediately.

That's where our driver comes in. The factory in Podlipki, glad to be rid of the bulky and troublesome package, assigned a truck driver to deliver it to the airport. Rocket engineer Boris Chertok recalls the drunken man driving "like a maniac", unaware of the precision instruments aboard, and finally crashing into a tree.

When he saw it, Korolyov was incandescent with rage. It was too big, too complicated and now too damaged. One of his engineers, Mikhail Tikhonravov, suggested they fly a radio beacon instead: a simpler, smaller, lighter sphere with just antennas and a transmitter, weighing only 70 kg.

They built it, and 50 years ago – on 4 October 1957 – the rocket rose on a bed of flames and disappeared into the night sky. When it was due to fly overhead on its first orbital pass, the engineers and dignitaries crowded into the radio room and waited. Finally, it came – a faint sound, growing steadily louder and clearer as it streaked overhead: beep, beep, beep.

The U.S. Navy, plagued with launch failures, was shocked; von Braun was furious and the American press went ballistic. Humanity's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was now in orbit.

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